Janet Lin

MRP Outline
Question: To what extent did the war on terror affect and contribute to the sharp increase in the
incarceration rate in the U.S.?
I.

Terrorism in and of itself

A. Various legal systems and government agencies use different definitions of terrorism in
their national legislation. Moreover, even within the U.S. Government, agencies responsible
for different functions in the ongoing fight against terrorism and extremism use different
definitions.
1. The United States Department of Defence defines terrorism as the calculated use of
unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or
to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political,
religious, or ideological.
a) Note three key elementsviolence, fear, and intimidation
2. The FBI uses this definition: "Terrorism is the unlawful use of force and violence against
persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any
segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.
3. The U.S. Department of State defines terrorism to be "premeditated politically-motivated
violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by sub-national groups or
clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience".
B. It is generally agreed that:
1. The terrorists plan their attack to obtain the greatest publicity, choosing targets that
symbolise what they oppose.
2. The effectiveness of the terrorist act lies not in the act itself, but in the publics or
governments reaction to the act.
3. Terrorist acts frequently have a political purpose.
a) This is often where the inter-relationship between terrorism and religion occurs.
In
US
media, terrorists are portrayed typically as:
C.
1. The phrase one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter is a view terrorists
themselves would gladly accept. Terrorists do not see themselves as evil.
2. They believe they are legitimate combatants, fighting for what they believe in, by
whatever means possible to attain their goals.
3. The US will gladly promote this point of view: The sympathetic view of terrorism (Robin
Hood like) has become an integral part of their psychological warfare and has been
countered vigorously by governments, the media and other organizations.
The
case of state terrorism
D.
1. Some official, governmental definitions of terrorism use the criterion of the illegitimacy
or unlawfulness of the act to distinguish between actions authorized by a government
(and thus "lawful") and those of other actors, including individuals and small groups.
a) For example, carrying out a strategic bombing on an enemy city, which is designed
to affect civilian support for a cause, would not be considered terrorism if it were
authorized by a government.
b) This criterion is inherently problematic and is not universally accepted, because it
denies the existence of state terrorism
(1) The same act may or may not be classed as terrorism depending on whether its
sponsorship is traced to a "legitimate" government; "legitimacy" and "lawfulness"
are subjective, depending on the perspective of one government or another
(2) This diverges from the historically accepted meaning and origin of the term.
E. Terrorism Distorted
1. Most would agree easily that terrorism is a pejorative term. It is a word with intrinsically
negative connotations that is generally applied to enemies and opponents.
2. Brian Jenkins argues, Use of the term implies a moral judgment; and if one party can
successfully attach the label terrorist to its opponent, then it has indirectly persuaded
others to adopt its moral viewpoint

a) Therefore, the decision to call someone or label some organization terrorist seems
to be largely subjective, depending on whether you sympathise with or oppose the
person/group/cause concerned.
3. Professor Martin Rudner, director of the Canadian Centre of Intelligence and Security
Studies at Ottawa's Carleton University, counters this point, however.
a) He argues that this notion assesses the validity of the cause when terrorism is an
act one can have a perfectly beautiful cause and yet if one commits terrorist acts,
it is terrorism regardless.
II. Democracy warped by terrorism
A. Our limited systematic knowledge of terrorism hinders our ability to provide sound
counterterrorism policy prescriptions to policy makers.
1. In particular, having a clear understanding of the link between democracy and terrorism
is crucial, as democracy promotion has become important for much of the international
community
B. States that are actively involved in international politics are likely to create resentment
abroad and hence more likely to be the target of transnational terrorism than are states that
pursue a more isolationist foreign policy.
1. Democratic states are more likely to be targeted by transnational terrorist groups not
because of their regime type per se but because of the type of foreign policy they tend
to pursue.
a) It has been suggested that certain aspects of democratic regimes, such as high
levels of executive constraints, free press, and political participation, facilitate
transnational terrorism by providing a context in which terrorists can operate with
relative ease
C. Terrorist groups perceive democracies as soft targets that can be pressured to give into
their demands due to the sensitivity of democracies to costs.
1. Pape (2003, 2005) shows that terrorist groups tend to target democracies more
frequently because they know that liberal democracies usually accede to their
demands.
Freedom
of press is another factor that is argued to encourage transnational terrorism in
D.
democracies. A free press serves the interests of terrorist groups whose main goal is to
advertise their cause to a wide audience and gain publicity and recognition (Crenshaw
1981).
1. Unlike in repressive regimes, terrorist incidents are more likely to be reported in detail
by the free press in democratic societies.

III. War on terror and its implications upon immigration

A. There are some legitimate concerns about terrorism and immigration (as well as tourist
visas) on the whole. But illegal immigration along the US border is not a contributor to
terrorism.
1. Foreigners whove carried out terrorist attacks have entered the United States legally on
immigrant, non-immigrant work/study, or tourist visas. While some of them may have
been illegal in the sense of overstaying their visas, this is a qualitatively different
problem than border crossing.
2. Getting a tourist visa remains considerably easier than getting an immigrant or work/
study visa.
3. Apprehension rates for people attempting to cross the southern US border are quite
high about 25-50%. While this apprehension rate may be acceptable for drug mules
and economic migrants who are desperate to improve their condition, it is not
acceptable for people who wish to plan terrorist attacks, because they would get
detained and fingerprinted and their network may get infiltrated.
B. Immigrants are only a small subset of the total number of foreigners who enter the United
States every year. According to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, 351 million
aliens were admitted through INS ports of entry in fiscal year 2000 nearly a million
entries a day.
1. Workers from more than 80 different nations lost their lives in the terrorist attacks.
According to the Washington Post, The hardest hit among foreign countries appears to
be Britain, which is estimating about 300 deaths Chile has reported about 250
people missing, Colombia nearly 200, Turkey about 130, the Philippines about 115,
Israel about 113, and Canada between 45 and 70. Germany has reported 170 people
unaccounted for, but expects casualties to be around 100.
2. Those people were not the cause of terrorism but its victims.
C. Investigating the incarcerated conditions
1. The effectiveness of incarceration in the case of terrorism
a) Terrorists are not ordinary offenders. They often use their time in prison to mobilise
outside support, radicalise other prisoners, and when given the opportunity will
attempt to recreate operational command structures.
b) The security first approach of most countries results in missed opportunities to
promote reform.
(1) Many prison services seem to believe that the imperatives of security and reform
are incompatible. In many cases, however, demands for security and reform are
more likely to complement than contradict each other.
c) Radicalisation Arguments
(1) Prisons are often said to have become breeding grounds for radicalisation. This
should come as no surprise.

(a) Prisons are places of vulnerability, which produce identity seekers,

protection seekers and rebels in greater numbers than other environments.
They provide near-perfect conditions in which radical, religiously framed
ideologies can flourish.
(2) Over-crowding and under-staffing amplify the conditions that lend themselves to
radicalisation.
(a) Badly run prisons make the detection of radicalisation difficult, and they also
create the physical and ideological space in which extremist recruiters can
operate at free will and monopolise the discourse about religion and politics.
Concerns
regarding
psychology
D.
E. The legal perspective
IV. The European Model
A.