This month, the Maryland Department of Emergency Management (MDEM) and the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security (GOHS) invited START Director William Braniff to participate in a meeting of the Maryland Domestic Terrorism Task Force (DTTF).
This meeting covered topics such as the origin of the DTTF and how funding is requested and used, and allowed for input from domestic terrorism subject matter experts, including Braniff. Braniff presented on the role of higher education institutions in terrorism prevention.
Participants included elected officials, faith-based leaders, community organizers, members of public safety and academics.
“Our goal at START is to inform real-world policy and practice with rigorous data and analysis, so we are very happy to contribute to the State of Maryland’s effort to minimize the harms of domestic violent extremism,” Braniff said. “To our mind, that means addressing hate crime as well as terrorism, using data to drive rational resource allocation, and taking a public health approach to violence prevention that is much broader than a law enforcement-only approach to this issue.”
Braniff was invited to serve on the DTTF last year, and provided testimony to the Maryland General Assembly in favor of bills in both bodies regarding creating a state-level domestic terrorism task force.