Hofstra HORIZONS
Institute Director Robert A. Leonard, Ph.D., Hofstra professor of linguistics for more than 20 years, has also taught at Columbia University, where he earned a doctorate. He possesses both the academic theoretical foundations of the field as well as the requisite experience of applying those foundations to the real world. An internationally known forensic linguistics expert, he has been qualified in Federal District Court and a number of state courts; has consulted for the FBI, UK government, Pennsylvania State Police, NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force, New Jersey Office of the Attorney General, U.S. Attorney’s Office (Eastern District of NY), New Yorker magazine, ABC-TV’s Investigative Unit, and numerous other police departments and major law firms. Leonard has trained FBI and international agents in forensic linguistic techniques at the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit-1 headquarters in Quantico, Virginia, and has participated with the FBI to give training in New York to U.S. Secret Service, NYPD, NJ State Troopers, Homeland Security, UN, FBI NYFO, and ATF. Institute Co-Director James R. Fitzgerald, M.Sc., is a former FBI supervisory special agent and program director of forensic linguistic services of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit-1 BAU-1. (Fitzgerald left the FBI in 2007.) The BAU-1 of the Critical Incident Response Group is a component of the National Institute for the Analysis of Violent Crime at the FBI Academy and focuses its efforts on counterterrorism, threat assessment, and other forensic linguistics services. BAU-1 personnel offer services, including behaviorally oriented investigative assistance in counterterrorism matters, threat assessment/textual analysis, weapons of mass destruction, extortions, product tampering, arson and bombing matters, and stalking cases, to the FBI; other international, federal, state, and local law enforcement and intelligence agencies; and the military. Fitzgerald is the only fully credentialed profiler and forensic linguist in the history of the FBI. It was Fitzgerald’s groundbreaking forensic linguistic work on the Unabomber case that led to the FBI’s recognition of the pivotal necessity of forensic linguistics. For several years he held annual forensic linguistics seminars at Quantico for agents from the FBI and around the world. He currently serves as violent crime consultant and forensic linguist at The Academy Group, Inc., of Manassas, Virginia.
• Conduct cutting-edge research and provide cutting-edge training, course work, and workshops for counterterrorism, law enforcement, officials, and researchers – centered around the core competencies of forensic linguistics and threat assessment – two internationally recognized tools to combat terrorism.
• Hold international workshops in specific language intelligence competencies. • Offer an Executive Certificate Program in Linguistic Analysis and Security Studies. • Undertake analyses of incidentrelated critical communications. • Plan and execute research programs to expand analytical capabilities.
• Seek to facilitate and coordinate cooperative efforts by U.S. and foreign partner institutions and foster allied offshore intelligence initiatives.
Chief among its goals is a rapidresponse international task force of forensic linguists and allied specialists who can react quickly to situations requiring analysis and intervention.
The institute seeks to:
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Hofstra HORIZONS t Fall 2011
Sample applications of forensic linguistics-enhanced threat assessment: THREAT LEVEL ANALYSIS: State-ofthe-art techniques, based on thousands of FBI cases. When a threat is made, what should be the response? How likely is the threat to be carried out? How can the author be found? LINGUISTIC DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILES: Increase contextual information and narrow suspect pools. Language structure, grammar, vocabulary, syntax, phonological representation can potentially reveal a writer’s regional and local geographic origin, education level, occupational training, gender, native language and other features. AUTHORSHIP ANALYSIS: Further narrows suspect pools and can support investigation and prosecution. The Hofstra institute – and especially its International Forensic Linguistic Task Force – offers an array of unique and distinctive services not currently offered by any U.S. or allied government agency of which we are aware. As inaugural efforts of the institute, Director Rob Leonard recently traveled to London to train counterterrorism agents in the UK in forensic linguistic techniques, and similarly addressed a gathering of counterterrorism experts in NY. The institute also hosted an on-campus presentation on cybersecurity by Shawn Henry, a top FBI official. Hofstra has the opportunity to become a leading center in the world for forensic linguistics-related teaching, research, and application.