Protection of office buildings and spaces: A balanced approach to perception of terrorism risk in the common workspace

Abstract

The scholarly literature regarding soft target terrorism indicates a likely shift from acts of terror against hardened targets to attacks against easier, softer targets. Office buildings and spaces, by their often open and inviting nature and capacity to house large numbers of people, fit within the commonly accepted model of soft targets. They are also designated by the US Department of Homeland Security as components of critical infrastructure. The literature, however, identifies very little terrorist threat in the ordinary work environment. To better understand the history of and potential for future attacks in the office environment, this article examines frequency-based terrorist attack data from 1990 to 2017, from the Global Terrorism Database, along with contemporary attack trend data from government reports and relevant journal articles. The article also discusses how the reporting of such events impacts on the public. Finally, the article recommends an objective and comprehensive forward-looking approach to understand the level of risk, which embraces not only historical data but ongoing intelligence, assessment and analysis.