This report presents findings from a 2014 survey of a sampling of U.S. law enforcement agencies by the authors in cooperation with the Police Executive Research Forum to determine terrorist threats in their jurisdictions.
The sampling for the survey consisted of 480 state, county, and municipal law enforcement agencies with more than 200 sworn officers, together with 63 county and municipal agencies with 200 or fewer sworn officers in selected jurisdictions that had an incident or prosecution of violent extremism in recent years. There was a 70 percent response rate for the survey, including 35 state agencies, 141 county agencies, and 206 municipal agencies, with combined jurisdiction that covered 86 percent of the U.S. population. Of the 382 law enforcement agencies, 74 percent reported anti-government extremism as one of the top three terrorist threats in their jurisdiction; 33 percent reported extremism linked with al Qaeda or like-minded terrorist organizations. Environmental extremism was reported as a top threat by one-third of the agencies. 8 tables.