Testimony presented before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Accountability, Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation, on June 22, 2023.
In this report, the authors provide the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties with analysis of the department's use of terminology in referring to people in certain racial, ethnic, national, and religious groups. The authors also identify ways to improve departmental documentation, processes and procedures and create an organizational culture that supports lasting implementation of updated terminology.
Natural disasters affect a region's human capital as well as its physical capital, reducing both student achievement and educational attainment. These effects are persistent, and when monetized are of a similar magnitude as the property damage.
Shooting incidents at kindergarten through grade 12 schools in the United States have sparked calls to increase school security or adopt new approaches to school safety. RAND researchers used the American Teacher Panel to learn what teachers think about school safety, including what they think about policies that would allow teachers to carry firearms in schools.
This Perspective provides an initial review of the metaverse concept and how it might be relevant to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The authors review current definitions and identify key practical characteristics, summarize primary missions and relevant objectives for DHS, demonstrate that metaverses are relevant to DHS, and identify specific threats and opportunities that DHS could manage proactively.
Testimony presented before the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation on May 11, 2023.
Reducing the prevalence of human trafficking is a national priority. In this report, researchers recommend a research agenda for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to promote operationally relevant, focused, applied social and behavioral science research that would inform decision- and policymakers and assist operational partners in mitigating the crimes of labor trafficking and human trafficking more broadly.
Reducing the prevalence of human trafficking is a national priority. This brief summarizes the research needs for addressing labor trafficking policy and enforcement.
Effective risk communication is necessary to reduce the billions of dollars in damage and hundreds of fatalities that occur yearly due to floods in the United States. This report presents (1) a framework for informing an overall communication strategy and (2) processes for message development and dissemination of protective action flood guidance for diverse U.S. communities, ultimately reducing loss of life and property.
Estimates the energy requirements to operate a cryptanalytically relevant quantum computer.
The 2021–2022 annual report from the Homeland Security Operational Analysis Center describes the center’s research programs, provides project highlights, previews work on the horizon, and lists publicly released publications.
Researchers evaluated the Homeland Security Grant Program's terrorism risk formula for assessing threat, vulnerability, and consequences of terrorist attacks in states and major urban areas. The review suggests alternative approaches that the Federal Emergency Management Agency could consider to improve the risk formula and to address additional dimensions, such as community resilience and equity.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's contributions to U.S. economic security are often undervalued. This Perspective describes the evolving strategic environment for and the department's critical role in economic security.
Some U.S. communities, such as low-income or minority communities, are disproportionately affected by escalating natural disasters. The authors explore initial steps toward a methodology that can be used by the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) grant program to both communicate the pathway to building community resilience in an equitable way and track the program's progress toward participation and success in the BRIC program.
Testimony presented before the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on March 8, 2023.
Researchers developed the Racist and Violent Extremist Flock (RVE-Flock) tool to explore and analyze textual content and identify and understand emerging terms and their usage on racially and ethnically motivated violent extremist–affiliated social media. This guide explains and demonstrates the tool's functionality and suggests further applications and refinements.
The purpose of this study is to understand the experiences of climate change related migrants. To do so we draw on focus group discussions with Puerto Ricans in South and Central Florida displaced by 2017 Hurricane Maria.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency could simplify or amend the required benefit–cost analysis process in applications for hazard mitigation assistance to be more inclusive of lower-resourced communities. Homeland Security Operational Analysis Center researchers explore how the process could be simplified to be more inclusive of lower-resourced communities.
Provides a novel interpretation of national critical functions to enhance their use for research by the risk analysis community.
Analysts leveraged available data on performance of uncrewed aircraft system (UAS) platforms and developed an approach to characterizing spray coverage as a function of payload, speed, endurance, and delivery. They present performance parameters of interest, whether the spraying goal is breadth or density of coverage. Their findings are reported here.
This study examines the factors predicting willingness to move among residents of southeast Louisiana.
This Perspective presents some proposed solutions, and potential data sources to evaluate policy solutions, to problems related to mis- and disinformation, election security, extremism, and immigration reform. The authors have synthesized workshop conversations and added citations from relevant research literature to provide scholarly context for the various policy facets they explored.
During a November 2022 webinar, Mark Ghilarducci, the Director of California Governor's Office of Emergency Services, reflected on his more than 30 years of experience in public safety and emergency management at the local, state, and federal levels. Director Ghilarducci discussed how California faced challenges from climate change, COVID-19, and other threats; lessons from these experiences; and his view of the future of emergency management.
Researchers identified approaches the U.S. Coast Guard could take to improve crew satisfaction with precommissioning assignments on offshore patrol cutters and overall fleet readiness. They evaluated the options using five criteria: crew satisfaction, crew preparation and knowledge retention, timeliness, feasibility, and cost.
This brief summarizes the findings of U.S. Coast Guard Project Evergreen V, part of a long-term strategic planning effort to identify emerging challenges and future trends that might alter demand for missions and the ability to perform them.
