Adjusting to Terrorism Essay Example

There are many aspects of terrorism starting from communications, recruitment of members, and attacks that have been changing over the past decade. These changes are majorly credited to development in internet technology and increasing possibilities in cyberspace calling for administrative changes in the criminal justice agency across the country (Green, 2016; Mayer & Erickson, 2011). Therefore, there is a need for a robust collaboration between law enforcement agencies at the government, state and local levels to fight crimes and terrorism. This paper focuses on the state of criminal justice agency and proposes changes that should be made to improve the fight against terrorism.

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Eighteen years after the September 11 terrorist attack, terrorism has spread around the world. In the United States, strategies and policies of the past three administrations, the Republican, Democratic and again the Republican have been fruitful in hunting terrorists down, destroying their safe camps, preventing them from plotting and conducting attacks on the American soil. However, this has increased the urgency and severity of the problem as new and improvised terror groups have taken roots. These groups are using internet technology, media, mosques, and religious schools, and familial networks to pass their perverted propaganda and ideologies, recruit new members, and justify their violence. The three ruling regimes have taken extraordinary steps in combusting terrorism in the United States, but they have admitted that there is no simple solution to the issue.

The United States has invested heavily in countering terrorism with the executive branch receiving approximately $2.5 trillion for counterterrorism operations since September 11, 2001 (Green, 2016).

Following the 11th September 2001 attack, there has been a revolution in collaboration between federal, state, and local homeland security, law enforcement, and intelligence organizations (Davis, 2004; Green, 2016; Mayer & Erickson, 2011). The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been created at the federal level, and state governments have taken a lead role in homeland security. Local law enforcement agencies have integrated intelligence in their operations while foreign intelligence has also undergone reforms. These measures have promoted security in American soil. There have been hard and expanding physical barriers in sensitive places and critical infrastructure that might be of interest to terrorists, tightening procedures and controls for people entering the country while improving screening procedures at the entry points. Also, investigation and prosecutions for terrorism-related cases have been strengthened (Green, 2016).

These reforms have been implemented by more than 263 government entities with DHS being chief among them (Green, 2016). The DHS have integrated different federal agencies and departments to make sure the domestic counterterrorism efforts are unified. The Transportation Security Administration has been with centralizing and standardizing airport security.

The massive financial and human resources devoted to security have made the United States safer in many aspects. It is difficult for terrorists to enter the US, and if they do, they cannot execute massive attacks. However, in an era where domestic radicalization, social media recruitment, and lone-wolf attacks are at its prime, the above enforcement strategies alone cannot eradicate terrorism threats. Fighting terrorism is a battle for both arms and ideas as previously reported by National Security Strategy in 2006.

Although the battle of arms is managed, the battle of ideas remains a concern. For instance, the Islamic State (ISIS) uses social media platforms to recruit militia and plan attacks all over the world resorting to lone-attackers or small groups against soft targets with simple improvised weapons. These attacks do not require extensive planning or coordination therefore hard to spot by intelligence bodies but no less dangerous. Although one-on-one interactions and personal connections remain the recruitment tactics, digital platforms act as amplifiers for these recruitments. Also, the widespread use of social media has made it difficult for security agencies to isolate violent extremist threats from harmless noises on the internet.

Moving forward, the criminal justice agency needs a comprehensive strategy to deal with the battle of ideas by targeting digital platforms - a well-resourced operational strategy that aims at discrediting violent extremists' perverted and murderous ideologies on social media sites. Such a strategy requires empowering religious leaders, teachers, parents, peers, and other grassroots participants to identify and detect public safety risks and intervene promptly before radicalization occurs. Besides, community leaders and civil society should aim at competing with and overtaking violent extremists' ideologist in both virtual and real spaces. For this to be successful, there is a need for political and financial support and training.

Second, there is a need to address the underlying reasons for people to have the desire to join or respond to calls of terrorism. Although there are no distinctive reasons for a person to join terrorist groups, most convicts and ex-terrorist members point at injustice, marginalization, and oppression to be major contributing factors. They join the militia as an aspiration act aiming at gaining power, address perceived injustice and inequality or participate in "holy" efforts to transform the world (Green, 2016). Therefore, by addressing this perceived injustice, oppression and marginalization is the beginning of long term prevention of terrorist ideologies.

Conclusion

By implementing the above recommendations while maintaining the existing law enforcement strategies, the state of homeland security in the United States will be improved. Therefore, this calls for reorganization and further investment in both federal and civilian-led efforts to make the US inhospitable to terrorist groups and their ideologies.

References

Davis, L., M. (2004). When Terrorism Hits Home: How Prepared Are State and Local Law Enforcement. The RAND Corporation. Available from: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2004/RAND_MG104.pdf

Green, S., N. (2016, December 15). Do we need a new strategy to prevent terrorist attacks on the United States? Centre for Strategic and International Studies. Retrieved from: https://www.csis.org/analysis/do-we-need-new-strategy-prevent-terrorist-attacks-united-states

Mayer, M., and Erickson, S. (2011, June 23). Changing today's law enforcement culture to face 21st-century threats. Homeland Security. Retrieved from: https://www.heritage.org/homeland-security/report/changing-todays-law-enforcement-culture-face-21st-century-threats