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Dynamic, Graph-Based Risk Assessments for the Detection of Violent Extremist Radicalization Trajectories Using Large Scale Social and Behavioral Data, United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, 1994-2020

Metadata Updated: November 28, 2023

This project examines the trajectory of radicalization of jihadists and Incels with two broad objectives in mind. First, to develop new integrated computational technology that can mine, monitor, and screen for the occurrence of behaviors associated with dangerously escalating extremism in large heterogenous databases and provide early warnings of individuals or groups on behavioral trajectories toward extremist violence. Second, to harness data science methodologies to enable rapid, semi-automated support for law enforcement analysts and social science researchers to produce structured behavioral indicator profiles from text sources. The study operated from the premise that being that violent extremists are a rare, complex phenomenon, it is futile to search for a profile of extremism. Rather, it is better to focus on explaining how people come to embrace violent extremism. This path, referred to here as a radicalization trajectory, implies that an arc exists leading the perpetrator from entertaining extremist ideas to action, and that there is a somewhat predictable pathway from a normal, if perhaps angry state, to the perpetration of a violent attack in the name of the ideology. Two teams were combined to analyze radicalization trajectories: data collection and analysis led by Brandeis University and technology development led by Colorado State University (CSU). The questions revolving around the technological development were as follows: Can tools that rigorously examine and account for the activities of close associates better predict the likelihood that an individual would engage in violent extremism? Which risk assessment indicators for violent extremism in the extant literature are detectable via automated or semi-automated technologies, and what databases and datasets must be integrated to facilitate this detection? Can computationally efficient tools be used to mine these databases for the specific purposes of monitoring and screening for individuals and small groups posing a significant risk for violence? Users should refer to the data collection notes field below for additional information about study citation.

Access & Use Information

Restricted: This dataset can only be accessed or used under certain conditions. License: us-pd

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Dates

Metadata Created Date February 13, 2023
Metadata Updated Date November 28, 2023

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOJ JSON

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date February 13, 2023
Metadata Updated Date November 28, 2023
Publisher National Institute of Justice
Maintainer
Identifier 4269
Data First Published 2022-01-13T10:53:49
Language eng
Data Last Modified 2022-01-13T11:01:33
Rights These data are restricted due to the increased risk of violation of confidentiality of respondent and subject data.
Public Access Level restricted public
Bureau Code 011:21
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://www.justice.gov/data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 38a8bff8-b07c-48e6-8458-3feadab0eea8
Harvest Source Id 3290e90a-116f-42fc-86ac-e65521ef3b68
Harvest Source Title DOJ JSON
License http://www.usa.gov/publicdomain/label/1.0/
Program Code 011:060
Publisher Hierarchy Office of Justice Programs > National Institute of Justice
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 50ab9b104dc5ef9a56a99a94c6983438b3bb2f9830c5967ee4b4c0ab60c951b7
Source Schema Version 1.1

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