ABSTRACT
At the end of this chapter, you will understand the issue of probability for all types of threat actions, how to obtain statistical data for criminal action probability, and how to estimate probability for terrorism, economic crimes, violent crimes, subversive crimes, and petty crimes. (Risk factors are presented in Figure 9.1.)
Basic Risk Formula
Risk = Probability * Vulnerability * Consequence
or
Risk = (Probability + Vulnerability + Consequences)/3
Classical risk analysis methodologies, including all of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS)–approved methodologies, assume the existence of a threat actor, times probability, times the vulnerability to be the risk. (This calculation works equally well by summing the three variables and averaging the result.)
Likelihood
The existence of a threat actor is presumed (no threat actor means no threat action), and vulnerability can be estimated from data at hand, but probability, or likelihood, is virtually impossible to calculate for terrorism acts, although we will discuss methods of estimating likelihood in this chapter.
