Homegrown Terrorism in the United States

This entry focuses on homegrown terrorism in the United States. There are many terrorism definitions. Indeed, Schmid and Jongman (1988) identified over 100 definitions that differed over whether they included 1 of 22 elements. Nonetheless, Freilich et al. (2009a, b) demonstrate that almost all definitions require a violent, ideologically motivated illegal act committed by a political extremist, and this definition is used here. The Congressional Research Service (Bjelopera and Randol 2010, p. 1) defines homegrown terrorism as a “terrorist activity or plots perpetuated within the United States or abroad by American citizens, permanent legal residents, or visitors radicalized largely within the United States.”