Multidisciplinary Threat Assessment and Management Teams in Practice: Common Elements and Operations of Community Based MTAMTs

• NCJ Number: 309064
• Author(s): B. Heidi Ellis
• Date Published: 2023
• Length: 6 pages
• Grant Number(s): 2020-ZA-CX-0002
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)
• Award: Understanding the potential for Multidisciplinary Threat Assessment Teams to prevent terrorism: Conducting a formative evaluation of the MassBay Threat Assessment Team

Annotation

This study identifies common elements and operations of community-based Multidisciplinary Threat Assessment and Management Teams (MTAMTs).

Abstract

The purpose of the current study is to identify common elements and operations of community-based Multidisciplinary Threat Assessment and Management Teams (MTAMTs) in order to inform refinement and dissemination of this practice as part of a national strategy to prevent TVT (targeted violence and domestic terrorism). Researchers interviewed 26 team members representing 13 teams across the country. The researchers identified common features across teams, including inputs and activities. These informed a full logic model: a framework for how MDTATs operate, what success looks like, and how to achieve success. Despite some challenges, implementing community based MTAMTs for prevention of TVT appears feasible. Future directions for refining MTAMTs as part of a national strategy to prevent TVT include funding for additional research to understand barriers and facilitators to establishing community based MTAMTs, identifying policies and practices that can help overcome challenges, evaluation of MTAMTs to understand their effectiveness, increased sharing of lessons learned across teams, and dissemination of effective MTAMT models.