The posts below are brief summaries of 14-week research projects designed and carried out by our student team. tPP plans to release the full studies as peer-reviewed publications in the future.
Age and Ideological Affiliation in Terrorism: As Reported in tPP
Preet Patel
The results of my research represent various statistics regarding age, ideological affiliation, and number of people killed per attack in the Prosecution Project database. The graphs representing the statistical analysis that I ran reflect some averages and ranges that should be considered in understanding the subset of data that I finalized for my research.
Based on these findings, we can make conclusions regarding the average age of an attacker, the average number of people killed per attack, and the most common ideological affiliations for cases that resulted in one or more deaths per attack.
This research fits into the wider field of study in the Prosecution Project in its ability to offer understandings as to who commits certain acts of terrorism, as well as how and why those people committed those acts.
Further, in accordance with a variety of theoretical frameworks, conclusions can be drawn to further elaborate on why individuals commit terrorist acts and how these acts can be deterred by people in positions of authority such as police officers, prosecutors, judges, etc.
For future study of this material, I would first recommend sticking with a smaller subset of the full Prosecution Project database. This is beneficial because it allows researchers to analyze the data in a more detailed manner and reduces potential confusion, misinterpretation, and/or overlooking of data and details. Additionally, I would suggest considering multiple secondary coders depending on the type of research and analysis one is planning on conducting.
