MINDb4ACT

Within the MINDb4ACT project, five study visits were organised to extract information about the diverse institutional and legal frameworks of prevention and countering violent extremism (P/CVE) throughout Europe. The study visits incorporate these two factors to find good practices in the four domains of: prisons, local initiatives, schools as well as the Internet and media. Visits were carried out in Denmark, Belgium, Finland, United Kingdom and Italy between May and November 2018.

The study visits allowed the project consortium to make a step further in understanding the current status of P/CVE in Europe. The activities supported the scrutiny of the current State P/CVE policies and strategies and the project consortium was able to understand how these policies and strategies play out in reality, to what extent the needs, priorities and requirements of different relevant actors are reflected and how the issue of radicalisation is approached on the EU level.

The study visits have also allowed the partners to have a clearer insight regarding different EU countries assessment of relevant threats. Even though jihadism was pointed out as the main threat faced by four of the five countries visited (Denmark, Belgium, United Kingdom and Italy), three of them also underlined their concern about far-right violence (namely, Finland, Denmark and United Kingdom). Even though the vast majority of the pilot projects that will be carried out as part of MINDb4ACT will tackle jihadism, a number of them will be focusing on rightwing extremism. Some general findings, helpful for design and implementation of pilot projects are mentioned here..

Similarities, differences and multi-disciplinarity

It became apparent that member states share more differences than similarities when it comes to their P/CVE challenges and programme structure. Before the design and implementation of a programme or policy, it is necessary to take into consideration the context in which the approach will be implemented. Specifically, characteristics such as the historical background, the composition of the community, the relation among law enforcement agencies and the society as well as the type of extremism is classified as key information. As an example, in Finland, in the city of Helsinki, the Police showed less difficulties in dealing with far-right extremism than jihadism, declaring that the same approaching and disengagement practices do not have the same results on both extremists. Furthermore, applying a multidisciplinary approach is recognised as a key practice by many. However, two difficulties are identified when talking about collaboration among different actors: a lack of trust among professionals (for example, among teachers and the police) and a difficulty in engaging with the community.

Prevention as an integrated approach

Developing an integrated approach is another common element regarding P/CVE initiatives. Many countries (Denmark, United Kingdom) and localities (Brussels, Alberstlund) opted for incorporating their prevention measures in an integral response to other complex problems that are faced by young people, such as gang activity, hooliganism, drug abuse, cults recruitment, etc. This approach is grounded on different principles: the conceptualisation of violent extremism (in Denmark, for instance, the ideological dimension of terrorism involvement is seen as not very relevant). Thus, violent radicalisation is seen as one of the different non-law-abiding conducts, and dealt consistently.

Capacity building, criticism and challenges

As well, the development of capacity at the regional level is important. Resources and knowhow should correspond with the operational needs across the national while taking local requirements and concerns into account. As an example, Denmark considers as highly effective the implementation of targeted practices at municipal level, all different from a city to another. As it is the case of the Municipality of Alberstlund and Copenhagen. Furthermore, clarity in the division of tasks and roles is necessary when dealing with P/CVE. The authorities should define their roles and local actors should understand their responsibilities when dealing with P/CVE cases.

Study visits also gave space to carry out some criticism on the approaches studied as well as scientific gaps. For what concerns the latter, a scientific gap has been identified during the visit in Denmark, where experts and first-line practitioners declared interdependencies among mental health and radicalisation, calling for further interventions into this sector. This flaw is mainly due to the lack of resources bestowed in the last few years to organisations and institutions involved in dealing with people with mental health problems.

The critical perspective concerns the absence of a standardised and effective evaluation of the prevention programs implemented by the Member States. There is a general difficulty in understanding how PVE practices should be evaluated. Although in some cases such as the municipality of Alberstund evaluations are carried out, mainly complained of a difficulty in finding key indicators to measure their actions in the prevention area or, in the case of prison, evaluating the success of their disengagement process as many terror-related inmates have not yet left the prison. As an example, Denmark has a very well-structured and developed approach at national and local level, however, it was confirmed that neither in prisons nor in the municipality of Copenhagen an evaluation of the program or approach was carried out because of the difficulty in measuring some elements such as ‘the degree of trust in civil society’ as well as ‘the degree of trust among the community and professionals’.

In addition, when talking about challenges, some similarities among asylum centres and prisons have been identified. In both cases, problems in the legal framework have been identified. In prison and in asylum centres, one risk is posed by the long waiting periods (whether sentences or asylum process) which might offer a breeding ground for radicalisation. Moreover, in both contexts the importance of counselling and psychological services offered and advertised widely has been underlined, considered to be an instance where people can voice their concern or ask for advice. From this last element stems the Italian initiative to introduce the mediation as a rehabilitative activity towards terror-related inmates.

Links

https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/740543

Keywords

Countering violent extremism, radicalisation prevention, study visits, policy assessment