Gary LaFree: The Global Terrorism Database

Dr. Gary LaFree is Director of START at the University of Maryland and a professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice. He received his Ph.D. in sociology from Indiana University in 1979. LaFree is a fellow of the American Society of Criminology (ASC) and served as President of the ASC in 2005 to 2006. He has also served on the Executive Committee of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Crime, Law and Justice Committee and NAS’s Division of Behavioral and Economic Sciences and Education. He was named a Distinguished Scholar Teacher at the University of Maryland in 2012. Much of LaFree's research is related to understanding criminal violence, and he is the senior member of the team that created and now maintains the Global Terrorism Database. Some research that has influenced Gary's career Martha Crenshaw (1981) The causes of terrorism. Ted Gurr (1970) Why men rebel Clark McCauley and Sophia Moskalenko (2011). Friction: How radicalization happens to them and us. David C. Rapoport. (2006) Terrorism: The fourth or religious wave. Some of Gary's key research Countering Terrorism: No Simple Solutions. With Martha Crenshaw (2017) Handbook of the Criminology ofTerrorism. With Joshua Freilich (2017) Putting Terrorism in Context: Insights from the Global Terrorism Database. With Laura Dugan and Erin Miller (2015)