The Face of American Insurrection

We need a nuanced understanding of “who” stormed the US Capitol on Jan 6, 2021 to in order to better understand the scope and nature of the American Insurrectionist Movement as a first step toward creating viable solutions for the future. Storming the US Capitol was an act of political violence, not merely vandalism or trespassing for other purposes. And while militias and extremist groups played an important role, the vast majority charged with being inside the US Capitol or breaking through barriers to enter the Capitol grounds are ordinary Americans unaffiliated with any militant group.

Accordingly, The University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats (CPOST) has conducted a systematic analysis of the complete set of individuals arrested by the FBI and Washington DC police for offenses related to the storming of the US Capitol.

At the heart of this analysis is data. CPOST's Insurrectionist Database currently contains over 800 cases all charged with illegally entering the US Capitol or Capitol grounds on January 6th and many with more serious charges. Each case includes a wide array of relevant information, including demographics, occupations, home counties, military and law enforcement experience, as well as affiliation with militias and other extremist groups. The data is based on the analysis of official court documents and media sources of the primary demographics, socio-economic characteristics, militant group affiliations, and thousands of documents.

The data is the basis for CPOST's latest research report,  The American Face of Insurrection , published January 5, 2021. As summary of the report is published in  Foreign Policy.  CPOST first reported its data in  The Atlantic .

CPOST is making its database of insurrectionists available to the public. Below anyone can explore the data, the wide geographic distribution as well as the diverse demographic characteristics of those arrested -- and the relationships between them.