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Student One
Instructor Burnett
Corr 106
1/27/09
Summary and Synthesis
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Summary
On the topic of terrorism people think different things and explain it in different ways. In
the book, Introduction to criminal justice, Larry Siegel and Joseph Senna (2008), it states that
terrorism means “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant
targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents” (30). The book also states that “Terrorism
involves the illegal use of force against innocent people to achieve a political objective” (30);
such as the terrorist attack on the twin towers. After the attack on the twin towers criminal justice
agencies began to focus more of their attention on stopping the treat of terror. In the war on
terror it is hard to find a way to fight back against the terrorist and because of the lethal tactics
used today such as bombings, killing hostages, chemical warfare, and spreading toxic biological
agents. Since the terrorist have so few rules that they have to follow they will use any tactic to
get the job done. This makes it challenging for agencies of the justice system to deal with.
According to the book “the criminal justice system is now confronting a new breed of terrorists,
whose motivations are varied and whose sponsors are diverse”(31).There are 7 different forms of
terrorism, these include;
1. Revolutionary Terrorism- Revolutionary terrorists aim to replace the existing government
with a regime that holds acceptable political or religious views.
2. Political terrorism- political terrorists engage in a campaign of violence designed to
suppress or destroy those people of groups who oppose the terrorist’s political ideology
or whom the terrorists define as a threat to their social and religious views and political
leanings within their own homeland.
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3. Nationalist terrorism- Nationalist terrorists promote the interests of a minority ethnic or
religious group that believes it has been persecuted under majority rule and wishes to
carve out its own independent homeland.
4. Cause-bases terrorism- terrorist organizations direct their activities against individuals
and governments to whom they object on economic, social, or religious grounds.
5. Environmental terrorism- environmental terrorists carry out raids against those whom
they consider to be a threat to the ecosystem.
6. State-sponsored terrorism- state-sponsored terrorism occurs when a repressive
governmental regime forces its citizens into obedience, oppresses minorities, and stifles
political dissent.
7. Criminal terrorism- terrorist groups sometimes become involved in common-law crimes
such as drug dealing and kidnapping to fund their activities.
All definitions found on page 32 of the book introduction to criminal justice. Terrorism can
come in many different forms and were fighting it the best we can but it’s very scary to think
about the capabilities of terrorists. With the technology and advanced weapons we have
today it is very frightening to think about terrorism because the government wont always be
able to stop the terrorist before they attack.
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Synthesis
According to the article “Terrorism”, john Deutch, Foreign Policy, no. 108(Autumn
1997)” international terrorism has declined steadily since the late 1980’s”(2). The United States
have one of the biggest militaries and in 1996 it shows how scared terrorists are of that military.
It shows this because less than 25 percent of the terroristic activities harmed America. In the
article it said “terrorists are operating increasingly on an international level, not just one region
or country” (3). That’s scary to think about because we could be housing these terrorist in our
country and they could be feeding information back to their people without us ever even
knowing. This frightens me because where giving terrorists chances to come to our country and
find our week points to attack. The article also states “the second new aspect of terrorism is the
growing possibility that terrorist will seek more bang for the buck and make use of weapons of
mass destruction” (3). That just shows you that terrorist don’t care about the people or anyone
else, they just want things to be there way. The article also talks about cyber terrorism which is
also very frightening because terrorist can hack into financially systems and transfer money and
they can mess with air traffic controls and also power plant control systems. From reading the
information in the book and the information in the article I am now more informed about
terrorism but I am also more afraid of terrorist because of things that they can do and have done.