A University of Chicago research team on the South Side is warning that prosecuted threats against members of Congress exploded after 2016 and have stayed at unusually high levels, and they say social media is helping to drive the problem. The findings come from a long-running threats database maintained by university scholars and were featured on local television this week, bringing national security concerns right into Chicago’s backyard.
What the study found
In a new report from the University of Chicago’s Chicago Project on Security and Threats, researchers compiled a matrix of charged threat events and identified 378 charged threats and 265 charged perpetrators between 2001 and 2024. According to the report, prosecuted threats jumped by roughly 600% from 2016 to 2017, and members of both parties are now being targeted at similar rates. CPOST notes that the dataset relies on court records and open-source media and details the federal statutes most often used in these prosecutions.
Capitol Police numbers back up the trend
Federal protection data tells a similar story. As reported by CNN, the U.S. Capitol Police handled about 9,474 threat-assessment investigations in 2024 and hit a recent high of nearly 9,625 in 2021. Law enforcement officials emphasize that many of these investigations never lead to criminal charges, a gap that researchers say hides the full scope of troubling behavior. The heavy caseload has already pushed Capitol Police to expand threat-assessment operations and regional intelligence work.
Study director on Fox32: social platforms lower the barriers
CPOST director Robert Pape appeared on FOX 32 Chicago’s The Chicago Report on Tuesday to walk through the data and explain how social media can help violent rhetoric spread and make it easier for lone actors to pick targets. Pape described the dataset as a way to track shifting patterns of political violence and said online networks can speed up the circulation of lists, doxxing and coordinating behavior that can lead to real-world threats. The segment offers a concise look at how the team built its matrix and what they see in the numbers.
Why it matters in Chicago
The work is homegrown. CPOST is based at the University of Chicago and maintains the threats matrix behind the report, giving Hyde Park researchers a direct role in monitoring national trends. That local base means Chicago-area policymakers, campus security teams and civic groups have an evidence-driven resource close at hand when they plan protections and public education efforts.
Policy and legal takeaways
Officials and experts cited in the reporting say it will likely take a mix of stronger content moderation, better reporting tools and tighter cooperation between tech platforms and law enforcement to slow the pipeline from online rage to offline threats. National coverage has highlighted expanded Capitol Police intelligence work and proposals to increase home-security allowances for members of Congress, but observers note that platform rules and cross-agency information-sharing still trail the pace of online radicalization. Researchers also argue that clearer ways for bystanders to report threats and quicker preservation of digital evidence would help investigators convert more of those threats into prosecutable cases.
For those who want to look under the hood, Pape’s full interview is posted on FOX 32 Chicago, and CPOST’s report and underlying dataset are available through the University of Chicago site.
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