Evaluating counter-terrorism interventions to promote reports about leaking prior to terrorist attacks

ABSTRACT

The present study examined three different interventions that aimed to increase the willingness to report leaking and radicalization signs for Islamist terrorist attacks. Using an experimental approach, 697 participants from Germany reported their willingness to report different behavior to law enforcement and counseling centers after seeing poster advertisements on indicators of violent Salafism with or without additional instructions or reading a brochure about leaking and radicalization signs. Participants in the control group who received no intervention, reported a significantly higher willingness to report leaking than to report radicalization signs to both, counseling centers and law enforcement. In terms of the interventions, presentation of posters did not increase the willingness to report. However, the presentation of a brochure increased the willingness to report leaking (and radicalization signs) to counseling centers, but not to law enforcement authorities. These findings provide important starting points for adequate approaches to a sensible education about important warning signs for terrorist attacks and the improvement of prevention.

KEYWORDS:

• Islamist terrorist attacks
• law enforcement
• leaking
• radicalization signs
• willingness to report

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Compliance with Ethical Standards

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the ethics committee of the Psychologische Hochschule Berlin and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual adult participants included in the study.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available at https://osf.io/9pg8u/?view_only=2fb9070b3bc7409dbc9d7046077f338d.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung) and has the grant number 13N14885.