Message from the Chief of NTAC

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.

The prevention of targeted violence in our country remains critical as communities have far too often been impacted by mass shootings and other targeted attacks.

Keeping communities safe requires a team effort and the combined resources of federal, state, and local law enforcement.

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 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.

This model for violence prevention is informed by decades of NTAC research, which continually finds that most individuals who engage in acts of targeted violence elicit concern in those around them prior to the attack.

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.

With the creation and distribution of this guide, NTAC offers principles and best practices to state and local law enforcement agencies as they work tirelessly to prevent future tragedies.

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.