This paper will argue that there is an ongoing and mutually reinforcing relationship between state and nonstate white supremacist terrorism in the United States. Historically, white supremacist terrorism, perpetuated by organisations such as the Ku Klux Klan, has been both tolerated and perpetrated by members of state institutions, including police forces, prosecutors, and judges. 

But what has not been adequately recognised in the literature on this issue is that some contemporary forms of police violence ought to be conceptualised as white supremacist terrorism, regardless of whether individual police officers hold white supremacist beliefs. 

Drawing on a victim-centered definition of terrorism Jessica argues that, rather than being a problem of the infiltration of police forces by white supremacists, the connection between policing and white supremacist terrorism is structural and institutional, resulting in terroristic practices that pose a serious and ongoing threat to the lives and welfare of Black Americans. 

Jessica Wolfendale is Professor of Philosophy at Case Western Reserve University. She is the author of Torture and the Military Profession (Palgrave-Macmillan 2007), and co-author of War Crimes: Causes, Excuses, and Blame (Oxford University Press 2018), and has written over forty articles and book chapters on topics in political violence including torture, the prison system, war crimes, terrorism, and security. Her forthcoming book, American Torture and American Terrorism: The Myth of American Decency, will be published in late 2025 with OUP.