Community Reporting Thresholds: Sharing Information with Authorities Concerning Terrorism and Targeted Violence, California and Illinois, 2021

Parents, siblings, partners, and friends are often the first people to suspect a loved one is on the trajectory towards targeted violence or terrorism. These intimate bystanders are well positioned to facilitate prevention efforts if there are known and trusted reporting pathways to law enforcement or other resources. Little is known in the United States about the reporting processes for intimate bystanders to targeted violence or terrorism. This study is built on previous Australian and United Kingdom studies to understand the processes of intimate bystanders in the United States, in order to inform new, localized and contextually-sensitive understandings of and approaches to community reporting issues. Qualitative-quantitative interviews were conducted from March 2021 to July 2021 virtually over Zoom with 123 community members living in California and Illinois. The researchers describe their perspectives on barriers, facilitators, and pathways. The study sought to enhance prior studies with a larger and more demographically-diverse sample. It included a focus on ISIS/Al-Qa'eda-inspired foreign-terrorism, White Power movement-inspired domestic terrorism, and--of particular relevance to the US---non-ideologically motivated targeted, workplace violence.