Ideological Victimization

Abstract

This study examines homicide victimization during acts of far-right ideologically motivated violence. Focusing on victims of extremist violence in the United States, we compare ideological homicide victims to prior homicide research to determine whether ideological victims are similar to “routine” homicide victims. In addition, ideological victims were broken into four categories to determine whether differences between these victimization groups exist. The results of the study found that ideological victimization is a unique phenomenon, as differences were found between the victims of far-right ideologically motivated homicides and prior homicide victimization research, as well as differences between distinct types of ideological victims.

Keywords

victimization trends victim–offender relationship subcultures comparative methodology

Victim-centric studies of ideologically motivated, fatal violence (i.e., extremist and terroristic violence) are rare. This research fills this gap and focuses on victims of ideologically motivated homicide incidents perpetrated by far-right extremists in the United States. The population under study is divided into four groups: victims of anti-abortion violence, anti-government violence, anti-race and ethnic minority violence, and anti-social minority violence. Individual and situational characteristics of these victimization types are compared with each other as well as prior victimization research. We address two research questions:

Research Question 1: How do characteristics of far-right ideologically motivated homicide victims compare with victims of prior homicide studies?

Research Question 2: Is there variation in these characteristics across ideological victimization type?

We present empirical data, augmented by descriptive examples of ideological victimizations, to answer these questions.

The article first reviews prior empirical homicide studies that have examined individual- and situational-level victimization characteristics. Next, research on domestic extremism, specifically the far-right in the United States, is presented. The “Data and Method” section details the population of interest and the variables chosen for the study. The empirical and contextual results related to ideological victimization are then presented, followed by a discussion of the similarities and differences of the results to prior research, and the variation across ideological victimization types. We conclude with suggestions for future research.

Prior Literature

Victimization and Homicide Research

We begin by comparing ideological victims with “routine” (i.e., non-extremist) victims and review prior homicide research that examines individual- and situational-level characteristics. Prior studies have looked at individual-level attributes of homicide victims including sex, age, and race/ethnicity. Statistics from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR), which encompasses data across the United States, show that 77.5% of homicide victims killed between 1990 and 2007 were male (Puzzanchera, Chamberlin, & Kang, 2012).¹ Other research shows similar trends, with female homicide victimization rates remaining relatively stable at approximately 30% of male rates (Lauritsen & Heimer, 2008).

Many criminological theories hypothesize that age has a relationship with both offending and victimization risk. The average age of a random sample of U.S. homicide victims in the year 2000 was slightly less than 33 years (Gruenewald & Pridemore, 2012). SHR data demonstrate that more than 25% of homicide victims killed between 1990 and 2007 were aged 18 to 24, while just more than 50% were 25 to 49 (Puzzanchera et al., 2012). Disaggregated by sex, victimization risk for females, when compared with males, is higher after the age of 50 and also when younger than 5 (Jordan et al., 2010). When examining trends across race and ethnicity, elderly populations of Whites and Asians have a lower homicide risk compared with similar Black, Hispanic, and Native American age group populations (Feldmeyer & Steffensmeier, 2013).

Race and ethnicity are also typically examined in homicide victimization research. SHR data indicate that 48.3% of victims were White and 49.1% of victims were Black (Puzzanchera et al., 2012). However, victim race and/or ethnicity can vary greatly based on location. For example, a study on all homicide victims in Los Angeles County between 1990 and 1994 found that 12.7% were White (Sorenson & Lew, 2000), while 62% of Kansas’s homicide victims were White (Palmiotto & Janeksela, 1999). Only 3% of homicide victims in Indianapolis, Indiana were Hispanic (Dejong, Pizarro, & McGarrell, 2011), while homicide victims in Bernalillo, New Mexico were Hispanic more than 50% of the time (Broidy, Daday, Crandall, Sklar, & Jost, 2006). Ezell and Tanner-Smith (2009) found that Blacks consistently had a higher victimization risk than Whites, while Breault and Kposowa (1997) compared homicide victims with individuals who died of natural causes and found that Blacks and Asians had a higher homicide risk than Whites.

Situational characteristics of homicide have been studied to understand how, and why, individuals are victimized. Where the victim–offender relationship is known, the victim and offender are strangers 22.9%, acquaintances 57.0%, and family members 20.1% of the time (Puzzanchera et al., 2012). Utilizing the victim–offender relationship as the dependent variable in a multinomial logit model, Cao, Hou, and Huang (2008) found that compared with stranger homicides, the likelihood of a homicide occurring between intimates increased with offender age if they were married, or had previous convictions, while it decreased if the homicide event occurred outside. Other research demonstrates there is an association between the victim–offender relationship and the type and level of violence. Victims who have an intimate relationship with their killer are more likely to be stabbed or beaten with a blunt instrument, attacked in the head or face, and attacked with a weapon that was selected from the immediate area (Trojan & Krull, 2012). Victims with a non-intimate relation to their offender are more likely to be shot (Thomas, Dichter, & Matejkowski, 2011; Trojan & Krull, 2012). The most commonly used homicide weapon between 1990 and 2007 was a firearm (67%), followed by a knife (13.5%; Puzzanchera et al., 2012). Silverman and Kennedy’s (1987) study of victim–offender relationship and weapon/means use found that females are shot by men that know them but are strangled, suffocated, or drowned by strangers. Rates of weapon use in homicide also vary by region, offender, and victim race (Felson & Pare, 2010), and victim–offender relationship (K. A. Fox & Allen, 2013).

The location of a homicide incident and its actors are important situational characteristics. Two samples of routine homicide victims found that 29.0% (Sobol, 1997) and 34.0% (Caywood, 1998) of incidents occurred in the victim’s home. In a sample of victims from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 51.2% were killed outdoors, while 53.7% of victims from a multi-city study were also killed outdoors (Tita & Griffiths, 2005). Silverman and Kennedy (1987) found that women are more likely to kill and be killed in their own home, and homicide events involving strangers are more likely to occur in public places. Location is also important in elderly homicides, as they are also more likely to be killed at home (Kennedy & Silverman, 1990; Nelson & Huff-Corzine, 1998; Silverman & Kennedy, 1987). Stanback and King-Kallimanis’s (2011) Chicago study found that homicide victims who had no prior relationship with their offender were more likely to be killed outside or inside in a public place.

An important situational variable is whether homicides are intra-racial or inter-racial. SHR data show that homicides are only inter-racial 13.7% of the time (Puzzanchera et al., 2012). This percentage can fluctuate based on other incident-level characteristics. Homicide incidents where the victim and offender were friends or acquaintances were inter-racial only 8% of the time while with strangers, the percentage of inter-racial homicides increased to 25% (J. A. Fox & Zawitz, 2007). In a sample of homicides in Chicago, Cook (1987) found that homicides that occurred during a robbery were inter-racial 7% of the time if the victim was Black (White offender) and 49% of the time if the victim was White (Black offender). These individual- and situational-level studies demonstrate the variation in victimization characteristics that can be used to compare attributes of ideological homicide victims with research on “routine” homicide victims.

The Extremist Far-Right

Although we have not identified research that focuses solely on ideological victimization in the United States, past literature can still inform the second research question—Is there variation within ideologically motivated homicide victims? It has been hypothesized that victims of ideologically motivated violence are “random” and, subsequently, there is no variation to uncover. The “randomness hypothesis” argues that crimes that are ideological in nature, such as terroristic or extremist violence, offer no patterns (Canetti-Nisim, Mesch, & Pedahzur, 2006; Damphousse, Smith, & Sellers, 2003). The existence of patterns, however, may depend on how randomness is conceptualized. Researchers have stated that a terrorist incident “is typically called indiscriminate or ‘random’ terrorism because it makes no distinctions among the individual identities of its targets. In another sense, however, terrorism is very discriminate, because it targets specific categories of people and not others” (Goodwin, 2006, p. 2031). The few studies using inferential statistics to examine randomness did not support the claim that ideologically motivated violence is truly random (Berrebi & Lakdawalla, 2007; Canetti-Nisim et al., 2006; Feniger & Yuchtman-Yaar, 2011).

Therefore, it is important to explore patterns of ideological violence, such as acts committed by the far-right in the United States,² as they threaten public safety (Freilich, Almanzar, & Rivera, 1999). State police agencies view racist skinheads, neo-Nazi groups, militia/patriot groups, and sovereign citizen groups as significant threats to state and national security (Freilich, Chermak, & Simone, 2009). White racists were responsible for more than a third of deaths related to domestic terrorism between 1955 and 1998, excluding the 168 individuals killed in the Oklahoma City bombing (Hewitt, 2000). Smith (1994) found that between 1980 and 1989, 103 individuals federally indicted on terrorism-related charges were members of the right wing. Gruenewald (2011) identified 124 ideologically motivated homicide incidents that were perpetrated by the extreme far-right in the United States between 1990 and 2006. Compared with a sample of non-ideological homicides, far-right offenders were more often male, disproportionately White, and yet similar in age. A follow-up study (Gruenewald & Pridemore, 2012), which extended the time period to 2008 and used a multiple imputation technique to account for missing data, found similar results.

Although not exclusively perpetrated by far-rightists, other research has examined whether hate crimes were committed because the perpetrator was biased against a victim’s group, be it religious or racial, that was protected by the law (see, for example, Dunbar, 2006; Gruenewald, 2012; Herek, Cogan, & Gillis, 2002). While hate crimes and far-right ideologically motivated attacks sometimes converge, not all ideologically motivated homicides are hate crimes, nor are all hate crimes ideologically motivated. As discussed below, one common type of far-right homicide is anti-government, where the police or other government agents are targeted. Such crimes are not considered hate crimes. Similarly, most hate crimes are committed by youths acting in groups partially due to bias against the victim, but also because of the thrills associated with this attack. These youths are rarely far-right extremists and so these crimes are not far-right ideologically motivated crimes.

This study separates victims of fatal far-right attacks into four categories³ based on victim characteristics and the ideological motive for which they were killed: anti-abortion, anti-government, anti-racial/ethnic minority, and anti-social minority. This allows the researchers to know how the variation between ideological victims and past victimization research compares with the variation within far-right ideological victims. It is these individuals who were killed by adherents to the aforementioned ideologies and organizations that represent the universe of ideologically motivated, fatal victimizations on which this project focuses.

Research questions and hypotheses

We developed two broad hypotheses to explore the first research question—How do characteristics of far-right ideological victims compare with victims of prior homicide studies?

Hypothesis 1: On the individual level, there will be a difference between the characteristics of far-right ideological homicide victims and characteristics of “routine” homicide victims presented in past research.

Hypothesis 2: On the situational level, there will be a difference between the characteristics of far-right ideological victims and characteristics of “routine” victims presented in past homicide research.

Again, although to our knowledge ideological victimization in the United States has never been empirically examined, prior homicide research provides a foundation to compare ideological and non-ideological victims. For example, incident-level studies comparing ideologically motivated homicide events with “routine” homicides found significant differences in suspect and incident characteristics (Gruenewald, 2011; Gruenewald & Pridemore, 2012). There is no reason to believe that these systematic differences will not also be found, at least in part, in a victim-centric study on the same phenomenon.

The second research question—Is there variation in these characteristics across ideological victimization type?—will determine how much ideological victimization varies, if at all, when comparing categories within the phenomenon:

Hypothesis 3: On the individual level, there will be a difference in characteristics across far-right ideologically motivated homicide victimization types.

Hypothesis 4: On the situational level, there will be a difference in characteristics across far-right ideologically motivated homicide victimization types.

The four groups of ideological victims may originate from different populations based on the targeting behavior and ideological motivation of the offenders. For example, although anti-government and anti-racial minority victims are both killed by far-rightists, where the offenders live, with whom they interact, and their specific worldviews may manifest themselves differently across individual and situational characteristics. Therefore, we hypothesize that there will be important variations within far-right ideological victims.

Data and Method

The Extremist Crime Database (ECDB) offers systematically collected information on homicide victims killed during ideologically motivated incidents that were perpetrated by the extremist far-right in the United States. The ECDB used open-source materials to identify violent and financial crimes committed by far-right and other extremists. It is a relational database that houses variables at different levels of analysis such as the incident, offender, victim, and target levels. Network variables are collected to assess the relationships between the victims, the offenders, the targets, and the locations where the incidents occur. The current study focuses specifically on the victims of ideologically motivated homicide incidents committed by adherents to the extreme far-right, defined as

individuals or groups that subscribe to aspects of the following ideals: they are fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation), anti-global, suspicious of centralized federal authority, reverent of individual liberty (especially their right to own guns, be free of taxes), believe in conspiracy theories that involve a grave threat to national sovereignty and/or personal liberty and a belief that one’s personal and/or national “way of life” is under attack and is either already lost or that the threat is imminent (sometimes such beliefs are amorphous and vague, but for some the threat is from a specific ethnic, racial, or religious group), and a belief in the need to be prepared for an attack either by participating in paramilitary preparations and training and survivalism. (Freilich, Chermak, & Caspi, 2009, p. 499)

The ECDB’s incident identification and coding is a multi-stage process (Freilich, Chermak, Belli, Gruenewald & Parkin, 2014). First, open sources are used to identify cases that could potentially fit the inclusion criteria. These sources include, but are not limited to, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Report, the Anti-Defamation League’s Militia Watch-Dog, the FBI’s Terrorism in America publication, Hewitt’s (2005) chronology of terrorism events in the United States, the American Terrorism Study (Smith & Damphousse, 2007), and the Global Terrorism Database (National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism [START], 2012).⁴ Additional incidents were identified in online newspaper articles, which were searched using keywords and terms such as homicide and Klan, homicide and militia, homicide and sovereign citizen, homicide and White supremacists, and homicide and skinheads. The use of multiple sources increased the probability that the entire population of interest was identified. Due to the identification process used by the ECDB, the risk of inclusion and exclusion errors are minimized, especially when compared with other sources and databases used to study terrorism and ideologically motivated crime (Chermak, Freilich, Parkin, & Lynch, 2012).

Once potential incidents were identified, research assistants systematically searched more than two dozen open-source search engines and databases to collect all publically available information on the homicide events. The collected materials were forwarded to a coder who verified that the incident met the appropriate inclusion criteria, conducted additional open-source searches, and coded each incident. Variables coded were related to the incident, the offenders, the victims, and the reliability of the open-source documentation. This coding process was iterative and reliability was increased through coder training and multiple coders examining each incident (Freilich et al., 2014; Gruenewald, 2011).

For a homicide victim to be coded in the ECDB as ideological, they needed to fit several criteria; they must have been killed in an incident that involved at least one offender who adhered to a far-right ideology, was charged by the police for the crime, and there was evidence they committed the homicide to further their ideology. In addition, the victim must have been killed in an incident that occurred after 1990 in the United States. A homicide was coded as ideologically motivated when indicators of ideological motivation were found in open sources. Indicators include, but are not limited to, written or verbal statements made by the offenders that the victim was selected based on their status or identity, evidence found at the crime scene, such as drawings or symbols that are ideological in nature or can be related to the victim’s status or identity, or the victim was killed in a location symbolic of their status or identity (Gruenewald, 2011).

For this study, several additional steps were taken to validate the data, reduce missing values, and increase reliability. One highly trained researcher conducted targeted follow-up searches that used court documents, department of corrections websites, ancestry databases, and online news aggregators to fill in missing values and confirm existing values. These sources were searched using victim and offender names and dates of birth and/or death. As the population of ideological victims is relatively small, it was imperative to reduce missing values as lost cases introduce bias into the data. Although labor-intensive, the process allowed almost all ideological victims to be included in the research.⁵

The study draws on the strengths of far-right research in the United States that has utilized components of qualitative and quantitative research (see, for example, Aho, 1990; Blee, 2002; Chermak, 2002; Chermak, Freilich, & Suttmoeller, 2013; Dobratz & Shanks-Meile, 1997; Ezekiel, 1995; Freilich, 2003; Freilich & Pridemore, 2006; Gruenewald, 2011; Gruenewald & Pridemore, 2012; Hamm, 1994; McVeigh, 2004; Simi & Futrell, 2010; Smith, 1994; Van Dyke & Soule, 2002). Variables related to victim characteristics and offenders’ primary motivation are used to divide the victims into groups, allowing for an understanding of how victimization events might vary between different types of far-right ideological victims. For many scenarios, the motive is apparent, closely tied to the victim’s perceived or actual identity, such as anti-government extremists targeting a police officer seen as representing an oppressive and illegal government. Other times, the offender’s motive for victim selection had multiple parts, such as the murder of a Black homeless man killed by skinheads because of his race and his homelessness. In these cases, a primary reason for victimization was determined based on the sum of all of the evidence.

We used prior research as a guide to select variables of interest at the individual and situational levels. These variables were analyzed with descriptive statistics and augmented by open-source textual information. Importantly, to track levels of randomness as discussed prior, the ECDB developed three categories. The non-random category, purposeful victimization, includes victims killed based on who they are such as an abortion provider assassinated because of his or her specific actions and comments related to providing abortions. Representative victimization includes victims killed based on what they represent such as when an offender shoots at a pro-choice rally and kills a demonstrator. Here, the victim is a representative victim. Finally, if an individual is walking past an abortion clinic and is killed by an explosion at the clinic, they are an example of a random victim. The individual was not at the clinic, therefore they were not a representative target, nor did the offender choose to purposefully target the victim. This variable and its possible responses, as well as the others, are reported in Table 1.

Table 1.

Individual and Situational Ideological Victimization Characteristics.

Level	Variable	Values
Individual	Sex	Male; Female
	Race	White; Black; Other
	Hispanic	Yes; No
	Age	17 or less; 18 to 24; 25 to 34; 35 to 49; 50+
	Sexual orientation	Heterosexual; Homosexual; Bisexual
	Religion	String
	Occupation	String
Situational	Intra-racial	Yes; No
	Multiple suspects	Yes; No
	Multiple homicide victims	Yes; No
	Non-fatal victim	Yes; No
	Others around	0; 1-10; >10
	Victim–offender relationship	Intimate; Family; Acquaintance; Stranger
	Level of randomness	Purposeful; Representative; Random
	Weapon (n = 141)	Gun; Knife; Blunt Object; Bodily Weapon; Other
	Evidence of overkill	Yes; No
	Location (n = 141)	String
	Parking lot/street	Yes; No
	Activity (n = 114)	Work; Home; Leisure
	Victim residence/killed same county	Yes; No
	Year (n = 141)	1990-1994; 1995-1999; 2000-2004; 2005-2007
	Region (n = 141)	Northeast; Midwest; South; West

Results: Homicide Victims of Far-Right, Ideologically Motivated Violence

After pulling into the women’s medical clinic where he worked, Dr. Joseph Brown and an escort were shot and killed by Peter Hicks, an extremist associated with the pro-life movement.⁶ When Officer Reggie Miller approached an anti-government extremist in the parking lot of a grocery store and asked to see his driver’s license, the man drew a gun and shot Miller multiple times, killing him. In the Pacific Northwest, skinheads savagely attacked Robert Temple, a homeless man living under a bridge, beating him with a bat and smashing his head into the nearby railroad tracks. A similar fate awaited Jeremy Rhoades, a Black man abducted outside of his work by White supremacists who broke his legs and stabbed him almost two dozen times before slitting his throat.

These incidents are representative of the 141 far-right ideological homicide victims killed in the United States between 1990 and 2007.⁷ The anti-abortion group (n = 7) includes victims killed by offenders whose primary motivation was to violently react to the pro-choice movement.⁸ The anti-government group (n = 26) includes victims targeted because they worked for law enforcement agencies or the government, or were seen as representing the government. The largest group of ideologically motivated victims is the anti-racial/ethnic minority group (n = 75). This group includes those targeted for their racial, religious, or ethnic background including, but not limited to, Blacks, Asians, Hispanics, Jews, and Arabs. For Jewish and Arab victims, their targeting is a combination of ethnic and religious heritage. The final group, anti-social minorities (n = 33), includes victims targeted for a social status not related to race or ethnicity, such as homosexuals and the homeless.

Table 2 presents descriptive data on the individual characteristics of ideological victims. Understandably, race and ethnicity play a large role in ideological victimization events. As White supremacists are part of the extreme far-right, it is not surprising that their targeting behaviors often single out individuals or groups based on race and/or ethnicity. Of all ideological victims, 54.6% were White, 39% were Black, and 6.4% were other. When examining ethnicity, 6.4% of ideological victims were of Hispanic descent. Anti-racial/ethnic minority victims are predominantly non-White and the 25.3% who are White represent victims that are White-Hispanic, Jewish, Arab, or Whites targeted for their association with minorities. The anti-abortion, anti-government, and anti-social minority groups were predominantly White (100%, 88.5%, and 84.8%, respectively).

Table 2.

Percent of Individual Characteristics Within Ideological Victims.

	All victims	Anti-abortion	Anti-government	Anti-racial minority	Anti-social minority
Sex (n = 140)
Male	86.4	71.4	88.5	82.4	97.0
Female	13.6	28.6	11.5	17.6	3.0
Race (n = 141)
White	54.6	100.0	88.5	25.3	84.8
Black	39.0	0.0	11.5	62.7	15.2
Other	6.4	0.0	0.0	12.0	0.0
Hispanic (n = 141)
Yes	6.4	0.0	0.0	8.0	9.1
No	93.6	100.0	100.0	92.0	90.9
Age (n = 141)
17 or less	6.4	0.0	0.0	9.3	6.1
18 to 24	14.2	0.0	0.0	21.3	12.1
25 to 34	22.7	14.3	26.9	29.3	6.1
35 to 49	37.6	42.9	50.0	29.3	45.5
50+	19.1	42.9	23.1	10.7	30.3

Although a situational-level variable, prior research shows that homicide events are overwhelmingly intra-racial. For ideological victims, however, the majority of victims (54.6%) are of a different race from their offender (see Table 3). The anti-minority victims, who were intra-racial only 25.3% of the time, drive this number. Anti-abortion victims were all killed by an offender of the same race and anti-government and anti-social minorities also had a large proportion of intra-racial victimizations (88.5% and 84.8%, respectively). One example of a homicide motivated by the victim’s race is the murder of Dennis Trask. While standing outside a co-worker’s home after work, Trask and his friends noticed a car driving toward them. The vehicle slowed and its occupants shot Trask in the head, killing him. Trask, who was Black, was targeted by skinheads because of his race.

Table 3.

Percent of Situational Characteristics of Far-Right Ideological Victimizations Across Groups.

	All victims	Anti-abortion	Anti-government	Anti-Racial Minority	Anti-Social Minority
Intra-racial (n = 141)
Yes	54.6	100.0	88.5	25.3	84.8
No	45.4	0.0	11.5	74.7	15.2
Multiple suspects (n = 140)
Yes	48.6	0.0	36.0	50.7	63.6
No	51.4	100.0	64.0	49.3	36.4
Multiple homicide victims (n = 141)
Yes	22.7	28.6	50.0	17.3	12.1
No	77.3	71.4	50.0	82.7	87.9
Non-fatal victim (n = 141)
Yes	28.4	71.4	34.6	26.7	18.2
No	71.6	28.6	65.4	73.3	81.8
Others around (n = 132)
0	42.4	42.9	25.0	47.1	45.2
1-10	46.2	28.6	50.0	44.3	51.6
>10	11.4	28.6	25.0	8.6	3.2
Victim–offender relationships (n = 266)
Intimate	0.4	0.0	2.7	0.0	0.0
Family	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Acquaintance	27.1	0.0	5.4	30.0	34.7
Stranger	72.6	100.0	91.9	70.0	65.3
Level of randomness (n = 125)
Purposeful	40.0	42.9	22.7	40.9	50.0
Representative	59.2	57.1	72.7	59.1	50.0
Random	0.8	0.0	4.5	0.0	0.0
Weapon (n = 141)
Gun	54.6	85.7	88.5	60.0	9.1
Knife	18.4	0.0	0.0	22.7	27.3
Blunt object	9.2	0.0	0.0	2.7	33.3
Bodily weapon	11.3	0.0	0.0	9.3	27.3
Other	6.4	14.3	11.5	5.3	3.0
Evidence of overkill (n = 141)
Yes	19.1	0.0	3.8	16.0	42.4
No	80.9	100.0	96.2	84.0	57.6
Location (n = 141)
Business/church/school	29.1	85.7	26.9	29.3	18.2
Prison	5.0	0.0	0.0	6.7	6.1
Private residence	24.8	14.3	50.0	21.3	15.2
Remote area/park/vacant lot	20.6	0.0	11.5	13.3	48.5
Street	20.6	0.0	11.5	29.3	12.1
Parking lot/street (140)
Yes	38.6	42.9	42.3	47.3	15.2
No	61.4	57.1	57.7	52.7	84.8
Activity (n = 114)
Work	35.1	85.7	84.6	20.0	0.0
Home	12.3	14.3	3.8	15.0	14.3
Leisure	52.6	0.0	11.5	65.0	85.7
(continued)
Victim residence/killed same county (n = 110)
Yes	83.6	40.0	85.0	86.0	85.7
No	16.4	60.0	15.0	14.0	14.3
Year (n = 141)
1990-1994	29.8	71.4	7.7	36.0	24.2
1995-1999	36.9	28.6	46.2	33.3	39.4
2000-2004	23.4	0.0	38.5	21.3	21.2
2005-2007	9.9	0.0	7.7	9.3	15.2
Region (n = 141)
Northeast	15.6	42.9	15.4	13.3	15.2
Midwest	11.3	0.0	11.5	16.0	3.0
South	34.0	57.1	26.9	37.3	27.3
West	39.0	0.0	46.2	33.3	54.5

The sex of the victim does not appear to have a relationship with ideological victimization risk, even anecdotally. A large majority of ideological victims were male, with only 13.6% being female. Anti-abortion victims had the largest percentage of females (28.7%) and anti-social minorities the smallest (3%). The majority of the anti-social minority victims were targeted for being gay or homeless, which appears to affect the proportion of males and females. The homeless are disproportionately male (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2011) and far-rightists almost exclusively target gay males (only one lesbian was identified in this study).

Of the small number of female victims, several were targeted not for their sex, but for inter-racial dating. Stephanie Riker, a White teenager, was on the phone talking to her boyfriend when a White supremacist arrived at her house. Angry that Stephanie had a Black boyfriend, her attacker stabbed her in the heart and killed her.

Victims that were between the ages of 18 and 24 when killed account for 14.2% of all ideological victims. Almost 23% were between 25 and 34, 37.6% were 35 to 49, and 19.1% were 50 and older. When victim age is disaggregated across groups, anti-abortion and anti-government categories have no victims aged less than 25, while approximately 30% of anti-minority victims were under 25. Anti-government and anti-social minority victims are older, as 73.1% and 75.8%, respectively, are over the age of 35.

Approximately 10% of all victims were killed because of their sexual orientation.⁹ During one homicide, the offenders waited at a local hangout for gay men. When Javier Rodriguez, a young Hispanic man, approached, he was beaten and stabbed to death by the three skinheads. There were incidents, however, where the victim was gay, but targeted for another reason, such as their race. In one such case, Harriet Coleman and Brendan Meyers, both gay, were killed in a fire set by skinheads. The pair were targeted not for their sexual orientation, but because Coleman was Black.

Offenders rarely targeted victims for their real or perceived association with a specific religion or culture. One of these few examples is the murder of Annie Glick, who was killed in her home by a neighbor who knew she was Jewish. For Dr. Benjamin Seigel, the relationship between his religion and victimization is not as apparent. On one hand, four out of the five individuals his killer attacked were Jewish. On the other hand, his killer was motivated against the pro-choice movement, focusing his attacks on doctors who performed abortions. It was argued in the media that the high rate of Jewish targets could be attributed to the fact that Jewish-Americans are more likely to be medical doctors when compared with other religions and ethnicities. Wadi Hamad and Rajiv Singh were killed by the same offender in two separate incidents because they “appeared” Arab. It is not hard, however, to imagine that their killer conflated Arab and Muslim as the offender sought “revenge” for the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Although Hamad was Muslim, Singh was Hindu. In a similar case of religious misidentification, Matthew Stevenson was stomped to death by a neo-Nazi who thought his victim was Jewish.

In some cases, occupation and community status appear to increase one’s exposure and, therefore, risk of victimization. Five racial minorities were killed at convenience stores or restaurants where they worked. Agents of the criminal justice system, who account for 15% of the victims, come into regular contact with the public. In addition, 20.6% of all victims were targeted because of their job. Although all law enforcement officers were targeted because of their occupation, not everyone who was targeted for their occupation was in law enforcement. For example, seven victims were targeted because they worked in the medical field. Six were killed because they worked for or with women’s clinics that performed abortions and one plastic surgeon was killed because his work was “diluting” Aryan beauty. In the case of the 16 homeless victims, they were targeted not for the occupation they had, but for the occupation they did not have. In the skinhead culture, groups such as the homeless, drug users, and minorities are targeted because of a perceived low social status. For the homeless, their lack of occupation decreases their public visibility while raising their far-right victimization risk.

The 141 ideological victims were killed in 124 incidents. These situational characteristics are presented in Table 3. The victims were killed by multiple offenders 48.6% of the time, 22.7% were killed in incidents with multiple homicide victims, and 28.4% were killed in incidents where another person was injured. For example, after being beaten and tied up, Earl Poehler watched as four skinheads spun a partially loaded revolver chamber and aimed the barrel at his head. Twice they pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. His roommate was not so lucky. The weapon discharged, killing him instantly. The anti-abortion and anti-government victims were more often killed by a lone offender. Similarly, they were more likely to be killed alongside another homicide victim. Also, 71.4% of anti-abortion victims were killed alongside a non-fatal victim. In comparison, anti-social minority victims were killed alongside someone who was injured only 18.2% of the time.

As far as bystanders who could potentially witness or, as suggested by routine activities theory, prevent these victimizations, 42.4% of ideological victims were killed with no one around other than co-victims or offenders. Slightly more than 46% had 1 to 10 people around, while 11.4% had more than 10 people around. Anti-government victims had the highest percentage of others around, with 75% of victims having at least 1 bystander observe their death. Forty-seven percent of anti-minority victims were killed with no one else around but co-victims and their offenders, the highest percentage in this category across all groups.

Victim–offender relationships show that 72.6% of victims had no prior knowledge of their killer(s) (75.7% if brief acquaintanceships are counted as strangers¹⁰). Almost no intimate or family relationships existed between victims and offenders, while they were acquaintances 27.1% of the time. The strength of the relationship between two acquaintances, however, can be fairly weak. For example, Officer Brian Vance was killed by an offender whom he had interacted with years prior on a routine police call. Although the victim “knew” the offender, the strength and quality of that relationship is questionable. When victim–offender relationships are examined across ideological groups, both anti-minority groups had the largest percentages of their victim–offender relationships measured as acquaintances. The anti-abortion victims were all killed by strangers and 91.9% of victims killed by anti-government offenders were strangers to their assailant(s).

In many instances, victims were targeted not entirely at random, but for something they represented. Forty percent of victims were purposefully targeted. The killers knew who the victims were, although it does not necessarily mean a prior relationship existed between them. Of the remaining victims, 99% (or 59.2% of all victims) were killed because of something they represented, whether a specific race, religion, or even government. Here, the offender had no knowledge of the victim or their personal actions, only that they represented the population the offender was targeting. Only one ideological victim was randomly killed, that is to say that they did not represent the offender’s primary motivation, nor did the offender know them. This victim died while attempting to stop a far-rightist from killing someone they purposefully targeted. Disaggregated, the most obvious difference across the four groups is that anti-government victims were more often killed for something they represented and less often purposefully targeted when compared with the other three groups.

In relation to weapon type, victims were killed by a gun 54.6% of the time, a knife 18.4%, a blunt object 9.2%, bodily weapons 11.3%, and other weapon type 6.4%. These percentages vary across victim groups. For example, 85.7% of anti-abortion victims were killed by a gun compared with 9.1% of anti-social minority victims. Also, anti-abortion and anti-government victims were never killed by a knife, blunt object, or bodily weapon. Anti-social minorities were killed by a knife 27.3% of the time or beaten to death with a blunt object or their assailant’s fists or feet 33.3% and 27.3% of the time, respectively. Anti-race/ethnic minority victims were also killed more often by a knife, blunt object, or bodily weapon when compared with the anti-abortion and anti-government victims.

Directly related to the type of weapon is the idea of overkill: a physical assault going beyond what is needed to solely end a life. Overkill has been documented in homicide events where victims are targeted because of their sexual orientation (Bell & Vila, 1996). There is evidence of overkill for nearly 20% of all victims, with evidence of overkill in 16% of anti-racial/ethnic minority victimizations. One example of this is Black inmate Thomas Webber, who was stabbed 37 times in the face by a White supremacist. Proportionately, however, the deaths of anti-social minority victims most often included the use of deadly force beyond that needed to kill (42.4%). For example, one man was kidnapped because he was gay, then beaten and burned alive.

We aggregated the location of victimization into five categories: business/church/school (29.1%), prison (5.0%), private residence (24.8%), remote area/park/vacant lot (20.6%), or street (20.6%). The street category was coded if the victim was traversing a street, either walking or driving, not if they were standing outside of a business or a private residence that they were visiting. To capture those killed on the street or in a parking lot at one of the aforementioned locations, this characteristic was coded separately. For example, a victim might be killed in the parking lot of a bar. In this instance, the location would be the bar (a business) and they would also be coded as being in a parking lot. Anti-abortion victims were most often killed at a business, specifically the health clinics where they worked. In addition, 42.9% of the anti-abortion victims (or 50% of those killed at clinics) were murdered on the sidewalk or in the parking lot of the building. Anti-government victims were killed most often at a residence. When looking at only parking lots or streets, anti-government victims were killed in these locations 42.9% of the time, regardless of the specific location. For example, Officer Reggie Miller was outside of a business when a concerned citizen pointed out that a child in a nearby vehicle appeared to be in danger. On approaching the car, Miller was shot by one of the adult passengers.

Anti-social minority victims were less often killed in the street or a parking lot, but were disproportionately killed in remote areas, parks, or vacant lots. These three types of locations were grouped together because they represent isolation and intent by the offender to either take a victim to, or find a victim in, an area that is not well traveled. In the case of most homeless victims, they were killed in remote areas, under bridges, or in isolated parks. A skinhead stabbed John Carlisle, a homeless veteran, while he slept in a sleeping bag on a dry riverbed. Finally, almost 30% of anti-racial/ethnic minority victims were killed while walking or driving on the street. Two of these victims, Jillian Burk and Montgomery Jacobs, were shot while walking down the street, targeted by racist skinheads because they were Black.

Why, however, were victims at these locations when killed? At least 35% of ideological victims were killed at locations connected to their line of work. This number includes law enforcement killed in the line of duty or medical personnel working at clinics targeted by anti-abortion extremists. Almost 53% of victims were engaged in a leisure activity.¹¹ The vast majority of anti-abortion and anti-government victims were killed during work-related activities, targeted for their occupation. Most of the anti-minority victims from both groups were engaged in leisure activities when killed. These activities remove them from the safety of their homes and the protection of others, where their minority status could increase their risk of victimization.

Most victims were killed in the same county where they resided (83.6%). Only the anti-abortion victims were killed more often in a county where they did not live.¹² In one incidence, Alison Hubert, who was killed by shrapnel during a bombing, had traveled 3 hours with her daughter to attend a concert. In another, Joe Dempsey, a federal law enforcement officer, traveled across the country as part of his job requirements. There is no evidence that any of these victims were specifically targeted because they did not live in the county where they were killed.

Broken into four groups, temporal distributions shows that the greatest number of victimizations occurred between 1995 and 1999, with the fewest occurring during the 3-year period between 2005 and 2007. If victimizations were equally distributed, one would expect that approximately 27.8% would occur in each of the first three time periods, and 16.7% in the last period. Spatially, 39.0% of victims were killed in Western states, 34.0% in Southern states, 15.6% in Northeastern states, and 11.3% in Midwestern states. Once again, the anti-abortion victims varied the most between the distribution of all ideological victims and the other groups, as 42.9% were killed in the Northeast and 57.1% were killed in the South. The other groups, however, followed the overall trend with the most victims being killed in the West and South and fewest in the Midwest.

Discussion

In the initial exploration of a phenomenon, descriptive information is important in understanding basic, ontological questions. The purpose of this research was to first understand the prevalence and variation of characteristics related to ideological victimization before comparing these characteristics with those of prior research, as well as investigating the variation between the four types of ideological victims. To be sure, far-right ideologically motivated victimization is rare, killing 141 people in 124 incidents over an 18-year period. Although these victimizations are similar in the respect that each victim was killed by an extreme far-rightist who was ideologically motivated, variation in the individual and situational characteristics did occur, both when comparing the results with those of the past research and the ideological victims to each other.

We begin by addressing our first hypothesis, which states that on the individual level, the characteristics of far-right ideological homicide victims differ from the characteristics of “routine” homicide victims presented in past research. The percentage of ideological victims who were White does not vary greatly when compared with SHR data (54.6% to 48.3%, respectively). The difference in percent male was slightly larger, with 86.4% of ideological victims being male compared with 77.5% of all homicide victims. However, if viewed through the theoretical perspective of lifestyle and routine activities, sex may have an indirect impact on victimization based on other characteristics, such as type of employment. For example, law enforcement officers are disproportionately male (Reaves, 2010) therefore one would expect that police targeted by anti-government extremists would also be disproportionately male. For the anti-social minority group, it is not unreasonable to believe that this variation in sex, or lack thereof, related to homosexual men supports the idea that heterosexual males attack gay men to reinforce their own sexual orientation (Harry, 1992). Although the age distribution is difficult to compare with prior research, it appears that the anti-racial minority victims were similar in age to the typical victims in SHR, while the other ideological categories had older average ages. This evidence suggests that there is little difference between ideological and “routine” victims, at least when comparing individual-level demographics.

Variables without direct comparisons with prior homicide research can be compared with prior research on ideological violence. The lack of Jewish victims, although counter to far-right rhetoric, is in line with prior, qualitative research. When interviewing neo-Nazis, Ezekiel (1995) found that the majority were concerned with Black, not Jewish individuals. Similarly, Hamm (1994) reported that “The primary cause of domestic terrorism . . . is neo-Nazism—attitudes that are anti-black, antigay, and anti-Semitic (in that order)” (p. 215). Although far-rightists are anti-Semitic, those engaged in violence are more likely to target for characteristics such as race, sexual orientation, and occupation. In addition, the targeting of race over religion could be related to both visibility and frequency in a population. Far-rightists may simply target Blacks more often because they are easier to identify and have larger populations when compared with individuals who are ethnic and/or religious Jews.

There is evidence to support our second hypothesis, which states that on the situational level the characteristics of far-right ideological victims will differ from the characteristics of “routine” victims presented in past homicide research. For example, there are more inter-racial incidents than a typical homicide sample, a number driven by the fact that far-rightists are almost exclusively White and that a large proportion of ideological victims comes from minority populations. There is also a high level of ideological victims killed by strangers (72.6%). Prior studies using non-specialized samples show stranger homicides ranging from 13.9% (J. A. Fox & Zawitz, 2007) to 29% (Gruenewald & Pridemore, 2012). In many of the relationships where the victim and offender knew each other, it appears that these were relationships of circumstance, not strong social bonds. One could argue that increased social distance should be the norm for ideological violence. Although ideological differences can occur between family members and intimates, all things being equal, those with close social ties would share more in common, both demographically and ideologically. Strangers can quickly become symbols antithetical to an ideologue’s beliefs. An offender’s lack of personal knowledge of a potential victim allows them to dehumanize that person and view them as the other. This can be seen in the notion of randomness, where almost 60% of all ideological victims were neither targeted purely at random, nor purposefully, but solely because of what they represented to the offender, whether a race, ethnicity, religion, or lifestyle. It is not apparent whether ideological victims as a whole are more often killed by firearms when compared with prior research. The overall average does not vary greatly from prior studies, but the range within ideological groups varies from 9.1% (anti-social minority victims) to 88.5% (anti-government victims). No matter the weapon, violence perpetrated by the racist right has empirically been shown to be more intimate and more violent than other types of homicide (Gruenewald, 2011).

In regard to temporal variation, all anti-abortion victims were killed prior to 2000. Between 1990 and 2005, violence directed at abortion clinics in the United States was highest in 1993, 1994, and 1998 (Jacobson & Royer, 2011), the 3 years in which the anti-abortion murders occurred. The largest number of anti-government victims were killed between 1995 and 2000, a year significant to factions of the far-right due to the coming of a new millennium. In addition, the period after the Oklahoma City bombing saw increased government interest in the activities of militias, constitutionalists, and anti-government extremists. Related to anti-government victims, the death of a U.S. Marshal at Ruby Ridge was the first killing of a law enforcement officer in the 1990s by the far-right. Between Ruby Ridge and the Oklahoma City bombing, federal agents infamously raided the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas in 1993, resulting in the deaths of more than 80 civilians, including women and children (Hamm, 1997). These events were rallying cries for anti-government far-rightists to defend themselves against government.

Temporal variation could also be related to the national political climate. A Democratic president was in office for almost 7 of the first 10 years of these data, while a Republican was in the White House for almost all of the last 8 years. The policies and platforms of these varying political views could potentially act as mobilizing forces for the extreme far-right, increasing the likelihood of ideological violence when far-rightists view those in power as unrepresentative of their political views. Research on the far-right in Germany has found evidence that ideological violence occurs in waves and diffuses quickly to nearby regions with similar demographics (Braun & Koopmans, 2010). This is another possible explanation for the temporal and geographic clustering of far-right ideological homicides and deserves further investigation.

Regarding location, ideological homicide victims are less likely to be killed in a private residence than “routine” homicide victims. In a study that looked at routine homicides in California (Wu, 2008), slightly more than 33% of homicides occurred in a private residence, compared with less than 25% of ideological victims killed in residences. This difference makes sense considering the higher percentage of ideological victims and offenders who were strangers and the near absence of intimate relationships. In research on anti-LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) crimes, a population with overlap to ideological victims, location was also important in understanding the context of the victimization. Victims of non-fatal hate crimes identified the location of the offense, such as a gay bar, as being the reason they felt they were targeted for their sexual orientation 9% of the time (Herek et al., 2002). There are also ideological victims who were targeted for their association with an ideological target, such as victims killed at a gay bar or one killed outside a Korean church.

There is also evidence that supports both our third and fourth hypotheses, which state that on the individual and situational levels there will be a difference in characteristics across far-right ideological victimization types. When looking at within-group variation, anti-abortionist victims, for example, were all White and had the highest percentage of females compared with the other four groups of ideological victims. They were also the oldest. When examining the situations in which they were killed, all were intra-racial and all were killed by offenders with whom they had no previous relationship. Almost all died while at work or were targeted for their occupation.

Next to anti-abortion victims, anti-government victims were White most often and the same race of their killer. In fact, all non-anti-race/ethnic minority groups were predominately White, demonstrating that racism, if it exists, is secondary to ideological motivation in those groups. Compared with anti-minority victims, anti-government victims were less often killed by multiple offenders, yet more often killed by a stranger and alongside another homicide victim or a victim who was non-fatally injured. Similar to anti-abortion victims, very little or no evidence of overkill is apparent in the anti-government victimizations and most were killed while on the job. This empirical data paints a portrait of occupation-based victimization, where law enforcement and government officials are targeted either purposefully, or because of what they represent, while in the process of fulfilling the duties of their job.

When compared with the homicide victims from prior research, anti-race/ethnic victims were much more often Black, but only male slightly more often. Seventy-five percent of anti-race victims were killed by someone of a different race and 70% of the time by a stranger, findings contrary to typical homicide trends. Compared with anti-government victims, they were killed by guns less often, yet more often with knives and other means. Anti-social minority victims were mostly White, had the greatest percent of Hispanics, and almost exclusively male. This group of victims also tended to be older than the typical homicide victim, as 75% were over the age of 35. More similar to anti-government and anti-abortion victims, they were more often intra-racial. These victims had the most violent deaths. Often excessive force was used to beat them to death with blunt objects and bodily weapons. Mutilation and overkill were not uncommon.

Anti-minority victims overall have fewer individuals witnessing the event, more offenders, and a higher proportion of victimization events with only one victim. These victimizations are disproportionally intimate, many-on-one homicides, compared with the other ideological victimizations. Perhaps the underlying ideological extremism manifests itself in the overkill that occurs, with group dynamics increasing the levels of violence. In anti-abortion and anti-government victimizations, the ideological extremism manifests differently. These offenders do not rely on group support to attack a single individual. Instead, these one-on-many acts of violence show dedication to a cause by attacking hardened targets such as police officers or abortion clinics. The extremist violence is not found in the savagery of the attack, but in the willingness to engage in an interaction where the odds are stacked against them. Where anti-minority victims are outnumbered, their offenders make up for the ease of killing through heightened, intimate violence. In the case of anti-government and anti-abortion offenders, it is they who are outnumbered, the difficulty of the act a proxy for the sincerity of their ideological beliefs. The variance in overkill and modus operandi also could be a by-product of a subculture of violence, such as those held by neo-Nazis and skinheads (Ezekiel, 1995; Hamm, 1994).

In conclusion, victims of ideological homicide incidents vary from the typical homicide victim. The four types of ideological victims vary in many respects on their individual and situational characteristics. Anti-abortion and anti-government victims are overwhelmingly killed at work in what appear to be assassination-like incidents. Murdered sometimes for what they represent, other times for things they have done. Anti-minority victims, especially anti-social minorities, are attacked by groups in isolated areas, their deaths violent and intimate.

Conclusion

The purpose of this study was to address two broad research questions:

Research Question 1: How do characteristics of far-right ideological victims compare with victims of prior homicide studies?

Research Question 2: Is there variation in these characteristics across ideological victimization type?

This was achieved through the analysis and comparison of ideological victimization data with homicide victimization samples from other studies. To reiterate, variation of far-right ideological victims, both when compared with each other and with past research, does exist in some degree with both individual and situational characteristics. This research empirically identifies ideological victimization in the United States as a phenomenon different from others researched in homicide victimization.

Historically, both researchers and policy makers focus almost exclusively on the offender when addressing ideological violence. As this study has shown, not only can ideological victimization be researched, but there is also a need to do so. Importantly, patterns exist not only when compared with “routine” homicide victims but also when examining differences within ideological victimization type. This variation is informative as practitioners can determine not only who is at risk of ideological victimization but also how that risk varies when considering whether the offender is anti-government, anti-abortion, or some form of White supremacist. Knowing who is at elevated risk creates opportunities for information sharing with the community, and for intervention. This study is the first step toward understanding far-right ideologically motivated homicide victimization and providing policy makers, practitioners, and potential victims with the data that can be used to potentially decrease future homicides.

To reach this potential, future research should focus on hypothesis testing, utilizing this study, and prior homicide research, to theoretically test how and why ideological victims vary from other types of homicide victims. Criminological theories related to victimization, such as routine activities theory (Cohen & Felson, 1979) and lifestyle theory (Hindelang, Gottfredson, & Garofalo, 1978) may have the ability to explain differences between ideological victims and “routine” victims, and differences within ideological victims. To test these theories, an appropriate comparison of randomly selected non-ideological victims needs to be identified and their characteristics compared at the individual and situational levels. Macro-level characteristics are also important and studies that incorporate hierarchical models that examine the nesting of victimization events in communities would be useful to practitioners, allowing them to focus on geographic regions that are at an elevated risk for ideological violence. In addition, comparisons between ideologically motivated victims and non-victims would also be important, allowing researchers to determine whether victims of fatal, ideological violence are representative of the communities where they are targeted and killed. Finally, the within-group differences should also be further explored as it appears that the variation between the ideological victimization types was much greater than differences between the entire group and other homicide samples. In some ways, the variation within ideological victims is more intriguing than the variation between ideological victims and prior research, and could have more practical application for policy and lawmakers attempting to protect vulnerable populations.

Footnotes

Authors’ Note

The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security or the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START).

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Part of this research was supported by the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate’s directly and through the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) via research and education grants.

Notes

Author Biographies

William S. Parkin is an Assistant Professor in the Criminal Justice Department at Seattle University. He is also a member of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), a Center of Excellence of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. His research interests include ideological violence, violent victimization, and the relationship between the media and the criminal justice system.

Joshua D. Freilich is a Professor in the Criminal Justice Department at John Jay College, the City University of New York. He is also a lead investigator and a member of the Executive Board for the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), a Center of Excellence of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Dr. Freilich’s research focuses on the causes of and responses to terrorism (particularly in the U.S.) as well as criminological theory, especially environmental criminology and crime prevention. Recent projects have examined how lone wolf terrorists are similar and different from group-affiliated terrorists, county-level predictors of far-right extremism and homicides in the United States, and how terrorist organizations use the Internet. He is the co-editor of a 2013 book that will be published in 2013 on transnational terrorism.

Steven M. Chermak is a Professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. He is also a lead investigator for the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), a Center of Excellence of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. His research interests include identifying domestic terrorism, violence reduction strategies, and media coverage of crime and justice.

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