National Threat Assessment Center

For over 25 years, the U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) has produced research examining all forms of targeted violence to advance the agency’s protective and investigative missions and to support the safety and security of the broader homeland.

To support these efforts, NTAC delivers research and guidance to our public safety partners on how to prevent targeted violence in communities across the United States, with further support offered through our training and consultation missions.

This support continues with the release of the following operational guide, Behavioral Threat Assessment Units: A Guide for State and Local Law Enforcement to Prevent Targeted Violence.

The prevention of targeted violence in the United States is everyone’s responsibility, and NTAC stands ready to provide continued support to our community partners as they implement violence prevention programs.

NTAC was created in 1998 to provide guidance on threat assessment both within the Secret Service and to others with criminal justice and public safety responsibilities.

Through the Presidential Threat Protection Act of 2000, Congress formally authorized NTAC to conduct research on threat assessment and various types of targeted violence; provide training on threat assessment and the prevention of targeted violence; facilitate information-sharing among agencies with protective and/or public safety responsibilities; provide case consultation on individual threat assessment investigations and for agencies building threat assessment units; and develop programs to promote the standardization of federal, state, and local threat assessment processes and investigations.

All publicly available resources by the National Threat Assessment Center are available at www.secretservice.gov/ntac.

Improving School Safety Through Bystander Reporting: A Toolkit for Strengthening K-12 Reporting Programs (May 2023) provides school staff with ways to encourage reporting by students and the broader school community.

Mass Attacks in Public Spaces: 2016 - 2020 (January 2023) analyzes 173 attacks that occurred from 2016 to 2020 in public or semi-public locations in the U.S.

Hot Yoga Tallahassee: A Case Study of Misogynistic Extremism (March 2022) examines the background of an attacker who killed two women and injured four others in 2018.

Averting Targeted School Violence: A U.S. Secret Service Analysis of Plots Against Schools (March 2021) examines 67 averted attacks at K–12 schools from 2006 to 2018 planned by current or recently former students.

Protecting America’s Schools: A U.S. Secret Service Analysis of Targeted School Violence (November 2019) examines 41 attacks perpetrated by current or recently former students at K–12 schools from 2008 to 2017.

Enhancing School Safety Using a Threat Assessment Model: An Operational Guide for Preventing Targeted School Violence (July 2018) provides actionable steps for schools to develop multidisciplinary violence prevention programs that proactively identify and assist students who may pose a risk of harm to themselves or others.

Attacks on Federal Government: 2001 - 2013 (December 2015) analyzes 43 attacks directed toward federal government facilities and officials from 2001 to 2013.

Campus Attacks: Targeted Violence Affecting Institutions of Higher Education (April 2010) examines 272 incidents of violence that impacted institutions of higher education from 1900 to 2008.

Prior Knowledge of Potential School-Based Violence: Information Students Learn May Prevent a Targeted Attack (May 2008) explores how students with prior knowledge of attacks (i.e., bystanders) made decisions regarding what steps, if any, to take after learning the information.

The Final Report and Findings of the Safe School Initiative: Implications for the Prevention of School Attacks in the United States (May 2002) analyzes incidents of targeted violence in schools and outlines how schools could adopt the threat assessment process pioneered by the Secret Service to prevent future attacks.

In 1998, the Secret Service established the National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) to produce research and provide training and consultation on behavioral threat assessment to federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies.

Today, NTAC continues to lead the field of behavioral threat assessment and assist the agency’s public safety partners in their mission to prevent targeted violence.

As part of its congressionally mandated mission, NTAC produces groundbreaking operational research studies examining targeted violence in a variety of settings and publishes best practice guidance for public safety partners entrusted with ensuring the safety of our communities.

NTAC staff also deliver training by request to tens of thousands of public safety officials every year and routinely consult with a variety of agencies and organizations that are developing their own threat assessment capacities.

In addition to aiding external partners with violence prevention efforts, research produced by NTAC continues to shape the Protective Intelligence methodology used by the Secret Service.

The framework presented herein is the latest NTAC offering intended to support the violence prevention efforts of state and local law enforcement agencies.

NTAC research and Secret Service operational experience have established that behavioral threat assessment:

These themes have been identified by decades of Secret Service research examining targeted violence in a variety of forms, including acts of mass violence targeting public spaces in the United States. Assessment Themes are based on frequently observed or particularly noteworthy factors in the backgrounds of those who have engaged in previous acts of targeted violence.

For over 25 years, NTAC’s research examining incidents of targeted violence has demonstrated that future tragedies are preventable if communities are equipped with the training and resources necessary to identify individuals of concern, assess their risk of violence, and intervene appropriately.