Putting TRAC to Work
  Legal and Scholarly
Lawfare
April 11, 2017

What the Data Really Show about Terrorists Who “Came Here,” Part III: What if You Included Domestic Terrorism Cases?
By Nora Ellingsen, Lisa Daniels


We reviewed the number of domestic terrorism convictions in the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a research center at Syracuse University. Using the FOIA process, TRAC provides data on range of federal agencies, with the goal of providing the public with comprehensive data on government spending, staffing, and enforcement. Since 1996, according to TRAC data, 1,306 individuals have been convicted of domestic terrorism offenses in the United States—more the twice the number of international terrorism convictions during that same time period. TRAC reports that number as 654, a number that generally aligns with Justice Department records but which clearly includes a lot of the cases that we have excluded for reasons discussed earlier, so the discrepancy is likely even greater than that. After September 11, 2001, TRAC indicated there were 629 convictions, while the Justice Department records counted 627 convictions. (Because TRAC does not name individual defendants, we haven’t been able to identify the two additional defendants.) The trend is also consistent within years; each year, with the exception of 2002, domestic terrorism convictions have surpassed international terrorism convictions.


Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, Syracuse University
Copyright 2017
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