ISIS in American Courts

• In Event: Terrorism and Organized Violence: Global Challenges and Justice Responses

Abstract

The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, also known as ISIL or ISIS, is an Islamic fundamentalist terrorist organization that poses an increasing threat to the United States and its allies abroad. The extant literature suggests that foreign fighters joining ISIS eventually return to their home countries radicalized and trained for jihad. Despite the perceived threat, the paucity of empirical literature on the threat that ISIS poses on American soil is alarming. Over the past three years, Federal prosecutors have charged more than 60 individuals in the United States with crimes connected to ISIS. Using the American Terrorism Study, we examine those cases to explore three research questions that, at present, have not been addressed: whether any of the defendants were linked to planned ISIS attacks on American soil; the proportion of defendants who were involved in the material support of ISIS, and; the proportion of the defendants who had formal links to ISIS.

Authors

• Summer M. Jackson, University of Arkansas, Terrorism Research Center in Fulbright College

• Christopher A. Shields, University of Arkansas