Thesis (M.A. in Security Studies (Homeland Security and Defense))--Naval Postgraduate School, March 2006. / Thesis Advisor(s): Ted Lewis. "March 2006." Includes bibliographical references (p.41-45). Also available online.

Scholars have proposed numerous explanations as to why the Department of Homeland Security has struggled to mature as an organization and effectively conduct its core mission. We propose an alternative viewpoint that the department lacks key legal authorities and necessitates key organizational transfer in order to rationalize its portfolio. We examine these points through review of legal authorities in select mission areas and through a resource analysis of activities conducted throughout the federal government to execute the homeland security mission. The analysis leads to specific recommendations for transfers and authorities and suggestions as to how the political environment might coalesce around engendering these changes. / McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts; / Graduate Center for Social and Public Policy / MA; / Thesis;

Thesis (M.A. in Security Studies (Homeland Security and Defense))--Naval Postgraduate School, March 2006. / Thesis Advisor(s): Christopher Bellavita. "March 2006." Includes bibliographical references (p.95-100). Also available online.

Contingency theory, with regard to risk of homeland security incidents and homeland security preparedness, has received considerable empirical support. In past research, risk has been measured subjectively as agency executives' perceived risk of specific homeland security incidents occurring within their jurisdictions. This study examines actual risk, using the objective risk factors of experience with past natural hazards, social vulnerability, and urbanization. These risk factors, used in combination, have been significantly associated with terrorism-related homeland security incidents in the United States, and are used in risk assessment models of natural hazards. Contrary to expectations, the results of this study indicate that objective risk factors were not associated with either perceived risk or preparedness. Policy implications and directions for future research are discussed.

En Côte d’Ivoire, les problèmes de sécurité liés à la criminalité ont été portés sur l’agenda politique pour faire l’objet de politiques publiques à partir des années 1980. En effet, la criminalité liée au banditisme qui avait commencé à se structurer au début des années 70 corrélativement à la période dite du « miracle économique », a connu un boom à la faveur de la crise économique sous les effets conjugués, d’un chômage endémique, d’une immigration et d’une croissance démographique mal maitrisées, d’une urbanisation galopante et d’un exode rural sans précédent. Depuis 1983, l’État tente de maitriser la recrudescence du phénomène criminel à travers divers programmes d’actions gouvernementales sans véritablement y parvenir. C’est donc aux raisons de la contre- performance de l’action publique dans le domaine de la sécurité intérieure qu’est dédiée cette thèse. L’hypothèse défendue ici postule que l’inefficacité des politiques de sécurité publique est imputable aux dysfonctionnements inhérents à l’organisation et au fonctionnement de l’ordre politique ivoirien. En effet, l’exercice d’un pouvoir d’État autoritaire qui privilégie la défense instrumentale de l’ordre public dans les politiques policières et pénales afin d’exercer un contrôle strict sur la compétition politique a contribué à structurer l’action publique principalement autour des motivations électoralistes au détriment des besoins sociétaux en matière de sécurité, notamment en matière de criminalité. / In Ivory Coast, the crime-related security problems were brought on the political agenda to be public policy from the 1980s because crime related to banditry that had begun to take shape in the early 70 correspondingly to the period known as the "economic miracle", boomed thanks to the economic crisis due to the combined effects of rampant unemployment, immigration and a poorly mastered population growth, of rapid urbanization and an unprecedented rural exodus. Since 1983, the state is attempting to master the resurgence of criminal phenomenon through various programs of government action without actually achieving it. So the reasons for the poor performance of public action in the field of internal security that is dedicated this thesis. The hypothesis put forward here postulates that the inefficiency of public security policies is due to malfunctions related to the organization and functioning of the Ivorian political. Indeed, the exercise of an authoritarian state power that favors instrumental defense of public order in the police and criminal justice policies to exercise strict control over political competition has helped to structure public action mainly around electoral motives at the expense of social needs security, in particular on crime.

Since the terrorist attacks on the United States of America on September 11, 2001, approach to policing has observably been shifted across the country. Utilizing a qualitative methodology, this study explored the perceptions of community members from a Chicago, Illinois community regarding the shift in policing style post 9/11. Cooley's theory of the looking glass self, coupled with a phenomenological approach to understand the deeper meaning associated with the perceptions of the residents and the shift in policing styles in Chicago communities. The data were obtained from participants who were at least 40 years old and held a residence for at least 3 years in the area prior to 9/11 and 3 to 5 years immediately after 9/11. The study included the use of a semi-structured interview guide and the findings were analyzed using inductive coding with thematic analysis. The findings indicated that residents of the community want a positive relationship with the police but perceive that they are viewed negatively by the police and that police fear them. Participants agreed that they recognized a shift in policing strategies and consistently noted a desire for police to return to community policing strategies that they perceive have been abandoned in favor of more militaristic approaches to law enforcement. The positive social change implications stemming from this study include recommendations to police executives to consider the strategic and tactical demilitarization of the police department and integrate community preferences in future decision making regarding critical standard operating procedures including stop and frisk policies, training initiatives, and zero tolerance declarations. Adherence to these recommendations may improve oversight of officers and improve relationships with the community.

Protecting modern engineered systems has become increasingly difficult due to their complexity and the difficulty of predicting potential failures. With the added threat of terrorism, the desire to design systems resilient to potential faults has increased. The concept of a resilient system – one that can withstand unanticipated failures without disastrous consequences – provides promise for designing safer systems. Resilience has been recognized in research settings as a desired end product of specific systems, but resilience as a general, inherent, measurable property of systems had yet to be established. To achieve this goal, system resilience was related to an established concept, the resiliency of a material. System resilience was defined as the amount of energy a system can store before reaching a point of instability. The energy input into each system as well as the system’s exergy were used to develop system stress and system strain variables. Process variable changes to four test systems – a steam pipe, a water pipe, a water pump, and a heat exchanger – were applied to obtain series of system stress and system strain data that were then graphed to form characteristic system response curves. Resilience was quantified by performing power-law regression on each curve to determine the variable ranges where the regression line accurately described the data and where the data began to deviate from that power-law trend. Finally, the four test systems were analyzed in depth by combining them into an overall system using the process simulator ASPEN. The ranges predicted by the overall system data were compared to the ranges predicted for the individual equipment. Finally, future work opportunities were outlined to show potential areas for expansion of the methodology.

Protecting modern engineered systems has become increasingly difficult due to their complexity and the difficulty of predicting potential failures. With the added threat of terrorism, the desire to design systems resilient to potential faults has increased. The concept of a resilient system – one that can withstand unanticipated failures without disastrous consequences – provides promise for designing safer systems. Resilience has been recognized in research settings as a desired end product of specific systems, but resilience as a general, inherent, measurable property of systems had yet to be established. To achieve this goal, system resilience was related to an established concept, the resiliency of a material. System resilience was defined as the amount of energy a system can store before reaching a point of instability. The energy input into each system as well as the system’s exergy were used to develop system stress and system strain variables. Process variable changes to four test systems – a steam pipe, a water pipe, a water pump, and a heat exchanger – were applied to obtain series of system stress and system strain data that were then graphed to form characteristic system response curves. Resilience was quantified by performing power-law regression on each curve to determine the variable ranges where the regression line accurately described the data and where the data began to deviate from that power-law trend. Finally, the four test systems were analyzed in depth by combining them into an overall system using the process simulator ASPEN. The ranges predicted by the overall system data were compared to the ranges predicted for the individual equipment. Finally, future work opportunities were outlined to show potential areas for expansion of the methodology.

With an increase in the capabilities and sophistication of terrorist networks worldwide comes a corresponding increase in the probability of a radiological or nuclear device being detonated within the borders of the United States. One method to decrease the risk associated with this threat is to interdict the material during transport into the US. Current RPMS have limitations in their ability to detect shielded nuclear materials. It was proposed that directionally sensitive neutron detectors might be able to overcome many of these limitations. This thesis presents a method to create a directionally sensitive neutron detector using a unique characteristic of 10B. This characteristic is the Doppler broadening of the de-excitation gamma-ray from the 10B(n, alpha) reaction. Using conservation principles and the method of cone superposition, the mathematics for determining the incoming neutron direction vector from counts in a boron loaded cloud chamber and boron loaded semiconductor were derived. An external routine for MCNPX was developed to calculate the Doppler broaden de-excitation gamma-rays. The calculated spectrum of Doppler broadened de-excitation gamma-rays was then compared to measured and analytical spectrums and matched with a high degree of accuracy. MCNPX simulations were performed for both a prototype 10B loaded cloud chamber and prototype 10B loaded semiconductor detector. These simulations assessed the detectors' abilities to determine incoming neutron direction vectors using simulated particle reactant data. A sensitivity analysis was also performed by modifying the energy and direction vector of the simulated output data for 7Li* particles. Deviation coefficients showed a respective angular uncertainty of 1.86 degrees and 6.07 degrees for the boron loaded cloud chamber and a boron loaded semiconductor detectors. These capabilities were used to propose a possible RPM design that could be implemented.

The Markle Task Force on National Security in the Information Age was created to produce recommendations on how to best leverage intelligence and information to improve security without compromising existing civil liberties. Their second report proposed that the government set up an information-sharing network using currently available technology to improve our ability to prevent terrorist attacks, while protecting civil liberties. The Markle recommendations have been incorporated into the recent Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. The proposition is that the Markle task force recommendations are sufficient to achieve the required data integration in the United States. To affirm or falsify the proposition, three existing systems will be reviewed: Alabama's Law Enforcement Tactical System Portal (LETS), Florida's Statewide Data Sharing Effort (FINDER), and Orange County, Florida's Integrated Criminal Justice System. This study found that there is no overall model for national intelligence analysis that incorporates the capabilities that law enforcement has for collection and analysis in with the federal capabilities for collection and analysis. This may ultimately limit the regional systems' success. Recommendations for potential initial models are made. In addition, recommendations for improvement in each regional system are provided. Finally, further research is needed to refine a national intelligence analysis model that can be supported by a distributed information sharing network.