No abstract

This study systematically reviews the Situational Crime Prevention (SCP) and terrorism literature published between 2006 and 2016. We examine several variables related to the backgrounds of authors, publication outlets, methods used, and countries and terrorist groups focused upon in these studies. We also investigate if studies have tested the pillars of terrorism opportunity relating to weapons, targets, tools, and facilitating conditions. We find a strong literature and much support for SCP’s claims in the terrorism context. We highlight some data and method obstacles in fully evaluating SCP’s EVIL DONE, MURDEROUS, and ESEER frameworks and tools pillar, and suggest a need for more multivariate designs. We end by identifying underexplored substantive issues that deserve more attention, such as possibly refining EVIL DONE and to more fully address displacement versus adaptation processes.

This article uses environmental criminology and situational crime prevention (SCP) to devise a series of hypotheses to determine the factors that distinguish successful from unsuccessful assassination incidents. We analyzed a random sample of 100 successful and 100 unsuccessful assassination incidents from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) that occurred between 2005 and 2014. We then consulted open sources to create new SCP variables that we added to the original GTD data. The hypotheses were tested in a binary logistic regression. Results show that successful assassinations are associated with several SCP measures, including weapon type, fatalities, terrorist proximity to target, and attack and target location.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to use an environmental criminology and situational crime prevention (SCP) framework to study global assassinations carried out by terrorists. The authors set forth a series of hypotheses to explain successful and unsuccessful assassination incidents. Design/methodology/approach The authors use assassination data from the Global Terrorism Database from 1970 to 2014 to estimate a series binary logistic regression models. Findings Results indicate that various situational factors contribute to successful assassinations, such as target types, weapon types, total fatalities, and injuries. Practical implications These findings suggest that environmental criminology and SCP are valuable in developing prevention measures that thwart and disrupt attempted assassinations by terrorists. Originality/value Criminology has yet to apply environmental criminology and SCP to assassinations, a tactic often used by terrorists. This paper thus extends the existing assassination, terrorism, and criminology literature by applying this framework to assassinations performed by terrorists.