Guest editorial: Police and terrorism, violent extremism, and targeted violence

Extremist threats can occur in unlikely places, such as the threat of firearm violence in countries where firearms are illegal and from within law enforcement. In “‘Always out-gun your enemy’: Conventional firearms, right-wing extremism, and the challenge to contemporary policing”, Campion et al. (2026) summarize the lethal threat of tactical escalation by right-wing extremists in the Australian context, which has some of the world's strictest firearms laws. They highlight how firearm use among right-wing extremists is especially dangerous to police officers, considering the 2022 ambush attacks on police in Queensland. Through thorough examination of limited publicly available instructional materials posted online by right-wing extremists, Campion et al. expose the variable accuracy of shared information on using firearms in extremist attacks. However, the advocacy for bigger weaponry to outgun police officers arguably increases the rare but more lethal threat to police and the public. Campion et al. emphasize the importance of training and preparedness to counter this unpredictable threat.

“Extremism in policing: Researching a hidden institutional threat”, by Lewandowski and Shjarback (2026), pivots to the necessary examination of extremism within law enforcement. The authors identify law enforcement institutional vulnerabilities and the unique danger posed when those tasked with countering extremism are sympathetic to it. Their work is timely, considering the persistent police recruitment efforts by right-wing extremists and law enforcement incorporation of right-wing ideology in the US and worldwide (Farris and Holman, 2023; Koehler, 2025; Van Droogenbroeck et al., 2022). As the authors note, “when personal ideology shapes the interpretation or application of the law, bias becomes institutional harm”. Indeed, recent research confirms this may be happening: for example, Koslicki and colleagues (2026) demonstrate differential police response to right-wing compared to left-wing demonstrations (see also Keyes and Keyes, 2026). Lewandowski and Shjarback conceptualize the disparate literature into a coherent problem in need of scholarly attention and recommend a multi-modal, comprehensive research framework to identify and study extremism in policing.

Combatting extremism requires strategic preparedness and poses unique challenges to intelligence-led policing and integrating advanced technologies. In “Can intelligence-led policing work in countering terrorism? Understanding the Bangladesh case”, Biswas and Zaman (2026) discuss the shift from reactive to proactive policing through intelligence-led policing, highlighting the institutional, legal and resource constraints that stifle the translation of raw data into actionable intelligence. The authors make a substantial contribution by focusing on the Global South, which has been largely absent from this body of scholarly literature. Using Bangladesh as the backdrop and drawing from 25 qualitative interviews with various police officials, Biswas and Zaman explore the challenges of implementing intelligence-led policing, generally, and especially within the counterterrorism context.

In contrast to the challenges with manual intelligence in developing nations, Dolan (2026) adds to the conversation about applying intelligence to counterterrorism through integrating artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) in US state fusion centers. These contemporary tools are reshaping law enforcement intelligence gathering and threat assessment. Dolan explores how and to what extent AI/ML influences intelligence-led policing practices, along with the drawbacks of using such tools. Given that AI/ML has been disseminated with rapid speed, Dolan recommends cautious and responsible use.

Police alone cannot combat terrorism. Similar to relying on the public to report crime, the police need the public to report suspicions of terrorism and violent extremism. Another theme of this collection of articles explores how the public connects with the police to report suspicious activity – and whether the public will take the initiative.

Vitro et al. (2026) experimentally test public preferences for technological interfaces (i.e. webforms vs chatbots) for reporting suspicious activity to authorities, examining the mechanisms through which the public interacts with anti-terrorism efforts. As AI/ML tools proliferate and the public is increasingly exposed to AI/ML tools and holds diverse perspectives on AI use in policing (Alderden et al., 2026; Ezzeddine et al., 2023), Vitro et al. incorporate an important piece of evidence to the conversation. In particular, they find that interactive chatbots perform better on multiple dimensions (i.e. report accuracy, anonymity, trust and usability) than traditional methods of reporting through webforms – at least in a laboratory setting.

Moving beyond how the public reports suspicious extremist activity to police, Kearns et al. (2026) explore the influence of community dynamics in whether people are willing to share information with the police in their piece, “See something, say something? Examining variations in willingness to report suspicious activity to police across racial and ethnic groups”. Their article addresses the critical human element of suspicious activity reporting, analyzing how relationships and systemic issues impact the willingness of different racial and ethnic groups to report threats to the police. Using an experimental design, they found that Black, Hispanic and Arab/Middle Eastern/Muslim respondents were less willing than White respondents to report suspicious activity to police. Perhaps this finding is because people of color living in the US typically have lower trust in police than White people.

Indeed, willingness to report threats of suspicious activity to the police is dependent on public trust in police (Tyler, 1990, 2006; Tyler and Huo, 2002; Tyler et al., 2010). Altıntaş and Sevgili (2016) highlight interventions aimed at repairing fractures in public trust in police, discussing quasi-experimental evidence on social-based policing programs designed to build trust with youth in security-sensitive regions. The specific program studied was employed by the Şırnak Provincial Police Department in schools in Şırnak, Turkey, where the police assisted with vocational education, engaged with students in artistic expression and collaborated with students on civic engagement projects. Altıntaş and Sevgili report promising results, with some caveats.

In line with Kearns et al.'s discussion of the negative engagement with police minoritized racial and ethnic groups have experienced and Altıntaş and Sevgili's observations of negative vicarious experience with police and intergenerational trauma affecting police-public relations, in “Displaying deadly police violence against Black people through government memorials” Keyes and Keyes (2026) confront memorializing state violence by police against Black populations. Exploring 590 unarmed or legally armed Black people killed by police in the US between 2013 and 2023, they found 14 government-sponsored related memorials. They discuss how government memorials and public acknowledgment of state violence intersect with the broader discourse on police legitimacy, community trauma and targeted violence. Keyes and Keyes also connect the legacy of police violence against Black people to right-wing ideologies (e.g. White supremacy) within police culture, similar to the concern raised by Lewandowski and Shjarback (2026).

Finally, returning to counterterrorism strategies discussed by Biswas and Zaman (2026) and Dolan (2026), Ball (2026) provides historical context to counter-insurgency and counterterrorism. In “Policing in colonial Nairobi: Establishing policing norms and developing COIN response to “terror” in the city”, Ball examines how colonial policing norms and counter-insurgency (COIN) responses to “terrorism” were established. In line with some of the arguments presented by Keyes and Keyes (2026) and Lewandowski and Shjarback (2026), Ball argues that policing terrorism in colonial Nairobi largely operated to “enforce boundaries between European populations and everyone else”. Ball discusses how these historical frameworks continue to echo in modern policing structures.

I am grateful to the authors and the anonymous reviewers for their scholarly work and contributions. Together, the works in this special issue highlight the polycrisis in addressing terrorism, extremist violence and targeted violence: Contemporary counterterrorism policing requires balancing robust tactical preparedness and advanced intelligence frameworks with the need to maintain democratic accountability, root out internal extremism and heal fractured community relations. Moving forward, technological and tactical advancements (such as AI and intelligence-led policing) must be paired with social-based policing and historical awareness to be truly effective and just. Police agencies should continue to seek contextualized and ethical solutions to extremist threats. Echoing the recommendations of the authors in this special issue, further empirical research is needed to address both the external threats of terrorism and the internal/historical challenges facing police institutions today.