I think we need to standardize the risk.
Great Britain's logistical place in the world opens those agencies to far closer examination than the USA. The reality that potential jihadists are only a short flight out of Turkey creates a somewhat different scenario to the violence. There have been planes turned back or prematurely landed when a suspect was discovered on board, but I may be mistake, on longer jet flights than a hop from Turkey.
I don't want to simply assign risk based on numbers, but, there certainly has to be a better method of 'hit and miss' in international and national intelligence. Great Britain has it a bit more difficult in that their population in cities live very close together and the community can be of one particular leaning.
But, I think a key component would be in defining how close any specific religion is to death.
ie: The most obvious example is the Islamic faiths that carry death in their defenses of the religion. The opposite is something like Buddism where there is no violence to the point a monk will self-immolate rather than carry out an act of violence against any other.
So, working on a simple and obvious scale Jihadists would receive a number 10 or a ranking of high risk, where as, a Buddist would receive a number of zero or not a threat to life. The scale I am stating is very simple and very short as 0-10, however to place other denominations on the scale it could be a 1.5 or a 5.9.
I cannot believe this man in Australia was out on bail. He has a very long history of violence in his life and it is self-generated. So, I would expect "A Threat Assessment" of this man to have a rating of "High Risk" for violent behavior considering all the problems in his life. In that reality is the need for a country's intelligence to justify a ruling of No Bail. Not that he won't have a lawyer, but, to maintain him in jail/prison until all the allegations are resolved.
This guy had nothing to lose and he used the excuse of the Holy War to measure his own death against the favor of God/Allah.
I believe he came to the conclusion his life was not worth living with so many problems facing him and simply measured how he could be an asset to god and find the after life less painful than the one he had. Looking at his entire situation it was obvious he should have been in some kind of custody, even if it meant an ankle bracelet with twice a day recordings of his location. House arrest at the very least. But, also a visit to the local police building for a personal appearance everyday.
The point is there needs to be a standardization of 'threat' to other citizens in the intelligence network. This man had a long history of self generated violence as opposed to someone who was facing the judge for the first time as an accomplice. There have to be standard equations with a degree of error. The idea is to place the 5% extremes out of the picture all together and in that is the degree of which any assessment has to be PERFECT. Because of the extremes are realized to be dangerous, then the threat assessment developed is wrong and has to be reworked or abandoned. Either way the intelligence networks will have learned something.
