Situational Crime Prevention and Terrorism

This chapter summarizes the literature applying the Situational Crime Prevention (SCP) perspective to the study of terrorism. We first discuss the SCP framework in general and outline its applicability to the terrorism context. Second, we review the growing literature on SCP and terrorism that has emerged since the publication of Clarke and Newman’s (2006) seminal study on this topic. We highlight what is known about the authors of these studies, the publication outlets, research methods used, and the countries and terrorist groups that have been studied. Importantly, we examine how studies have engaged the four pillars of terrorism opportunity: weapons, targets, tools and facilitating conditions. We make sense of this literature, identify some data and methodological limitations in assessing the four pillars, summarize substantive findings, and highlight underdeveloped areas of study that deserve more attention. We suggest that future research could provide more detail on operationalizing the four pillars of opportunity, consider refining EVIL DONE, and more fully address the weapons, tools and facilitating conditions pillars, mitigation outcomes, and processes of displacement and adaptation.