Secret Service behavioral threat assessment model

The framework presented herein reflects the principles and strategies of the Secret Service’s behavioral threat assessment model.

The Secret Service model is designed to identify individuals displaying threatening or concerning behavior, gather information to assess if that individual poses a risk of violence, and then manage the risk by implementing the appropriate interventions.

In 1902, Congress directed the Secret Service to assume full-time responsibility for protecting the President.

In the decades that followed, the agency’s capacity to identify and intervene with those who pose a risk of harm to a protected person became a central feature of its protective mission and came to be known within the Secret Service as Protective Intelligence.

Just as the Secret Service’s mission to prevent assassination using Protective Intelligence is longstanding, so is the agency’s interest in behavioral assessment as a field of scientific study, with the agency’s earliest behavioral science research commissioned in the 1960s.

To further understand the relationship between behavioral assessment and violence prevention, the Secret Service convened a conference in 1981 involving agency representatives and leading behavioral scientists from across the country. One of the resulting recommendations was that the Secret Service establish an internal behavioral science research capacity to continue advancing the agency’s ability to prevent violence.

The ECSP coined the term targeted violence and established the foundational model of the Secret Service’s behavioral threat assessment approach, which is still in use today.

Or put more simply: identify, assess, and manage.

The same behavioral threat assessment model that is used to keep Secret Service protectees safe can be utilized by other federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to prevent other forms of targeted violence, including attacks targeting schools, workplaces, houses of worship, and public gatherings.

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 steps that follow describe how agencies can adopt the principles of the Secret Service model to proactively identify and intervene with those who intend to carry out acts of targeted violence in their communities.

The Secret Service originally developed behavioral threat assessment to prevent assassinations and safeguard the nation’s leaders.

The process was built upon NTAC’s research which found that most individuals who engage in acts of targeted violence elicit concern in those around them prior to the attack.

The Secret Service model, therefore, is designed to identify individuals displaying threatening or concerning behavior, gather information to assess if an individual poses a risk of violence, and then manage the risk by implementing appropriate interventions.

The Secret Service model has since been adapted to prevent all forms of targeted violence impacting communities in America, including acts of workplace violence, K–12 school shootings, terrorism, and mass attacks in public spaces.

As an example, Secret Service policy states that the primary objective of Secret Service Protective Intelligence investigations is to gather and evaluate information about potential risks to the people, places, and events the agency protects. Secret Service policy clearly establishes that investigating violations of federal criminal statute as part of a Protective Intelligence investigation is a secondary objective.

For example, while making a direct threat against the president would initiate a behavioral threat assessment, it is not the Secret Service’s sole threshold. The Secret Service initiates a Protective Intelligence investigation when an individual displays a threatening or concerning direction of interest toward any person or place protected by the agency.

A distinguishing feature of the Secret Service’s behavioral threat assessment approach is that all cases are centrally administered by the Secret Service Protective Intelligence and Assessment Division (PID).

For instance, within the Secret Service, each case is centrally administered by special agents and intelligence analysts at Secret Service Headquarters in Washington, DC, while the investigative work for those cases is conducted by special agents in Secret Service Field Offices around the world, all of whom have been trained in behavioral threat assessment methodology.

In other words, Secret Service field agents routinely conduct interviews, review records, write reports, make assessments, and employ behavioral management strategies, while those processes are centrally coordinated, reviewed, and documented at Secret Service Headquarters.

The Secret Service receives information relevant to the agency’s protective mission from a variety of sources, including concerned bystanders, law enforcement agencies, and other organizations. Regardless of the source, all information with a Protective Intelligence nexus is collected and processed through a centralized operations center within the Secret Service.

This approach is based on foundational principles identified by NTAC research and the Secret Service’s pioneering efforts in the field, which have established that behavioral threat assessment: • utilizes a low threshold of concern, • requires corroboration from diverse sources, • emphasizes rapport building, • is not profiling, and • is not prediction.

Secret Service research pioneered the Systems Approach to behavioral threat assessment when it published Protective Intelligence and Threat Assessment Investigations: A Guide for State and Local Law Enforcement Officials in 1998.

When the Secret Service conducts a behavioral threat assessment, one of the earliest steps will involve an initial interview with the individual of concern.

By following the steps in this operational guide, state and local law enforcement agencies will be able to adopt the pioneering principles of the Secret Service’s behavioral threat assessment model and move toward a structured approach to targeted violence prevention.

The Secret Service behavioral threat assessment model was developed to identify individuals displaying threatening or concerning behavior, gather information to assess if an individual poses a risk of violence, and then manage the risk by implementing appropriate interventions (identify, assess, manage).