Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression Addressing violent extremism as public health policy and practice (original) (raw)
Related papers
Countering Violent Extremism Through Public Health Practice: Proceedings of a Workshop
The National Academies Press, 2017
Countering violent extremism consists of various prevention and intervention approaches to increase the resilience of communities and individuals to radicalization toward violent extremism, to provide nonviolent avenues for expressing grievances, and to educate communities about the threat of recruitment and radicalization to violence. To explore the application of health approaches in community-level strategies to countering violent extremism and radicalization, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine held a public workshop in September 2016. Participants explored the evolving threat of violent extremism and radicalization within communities across America, traditional versus health-centered approaches to countering violent extremism and radicalization, and opportunities for cross-sector and interdisciplinary collaboration and learning among domestic and international stakeholders and organizations. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.
How Can a Public Health Framework be Applied to Preventing Violent Extremism
START, 2019
The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) evaluated the Muslim Public Affairs Council’s (MPAC) Safe Spaces program and found that the program as implemented was not successful, but some aspects showed potential. The full NIJ report is available and scholarly reports forthcoming. This research brief, written in collaboration with START, shares key lessons learned to help guide other programs and policies. The Safe Spaces Program aimed to strengthen community resilience and promote a healthy environment by empowering communities with practical and effective tools. The key components of the model included: adopting a public health framework; incorporating both prevention and intervention components; having an outside trainer deliver the program training to community sites, and; focusing on Muslim communities to implement the program in mosques.
START, 2019
The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) evaluated the Muslim Public Affairs Council’s (MPAC) Safe Spaces program and found that the program as implemented was not successful, but some aspects showed potential. The full NIJ report is available and scholarly reports forthcoming. This research brief, written in collaboration with START, shares key lessons learned to help guide other programs and policies. The Safe Spaces Program aimed to strengthen community resilience and promote a healthy environment by empowering communities with practical and effective tools. The key components of the model included: adopting a public health framework; incorporating both prevention and intervention components; having an outside trainer deliver the program training to community sites, and; focusing on Muslim communities to implement the program in mosques.
Tailoring Violent Extremism Prevention: A Targeted Intervention Method
2018
The threat that emanates from violent extremism in the United States has shifted from large-scale networked cells to lone-wolf attackers. These violent extremists vary in ethnicity, race, age, religion, and motivations, and their path to radicalization is not linear. However, the majority of Department of Homeland Security programs designed to combat violent extremism still focus exclusively on the Muslim population and on community-based approaches. This thesis identifies two separate but related deficiencies in current countering violent extremism (CVE) programs: first, their inability to prevent attacks perpetrated by individuals who have been interviewed by law enforcement but did not become subjects of a formal investigation, and second, their inability to provide early intervention for individuals who are vulnerable to radicalization. This research proposes a multidisciplinary , comprehensive model to prevent violent extremism at every intervention point, leveraging law enforcement capabilities, neighborhood policing models, and more robust threat assessment methods.
A public health approach to understanding and preventing violent radicalization
BMC Medicine, 2012
Background: Very recent acts of terrorism in the UK were perpetrated by 'homegrown', well educated young people, rather than by foreign Islamist groups; consequently, a process of violent radicalization was proposed to explain how ordinary people were recruited and persuaded to sacrifice their lives. Discussion: Counterterrorism approaches grounded in the criminal justice system have not prevented violent radicalization. Indeed there is some evidence that these approaches may have encouraged membership of radical groups by not recognizing Muslim communities as allies, citizens, victims of terrorism, and victims of discrimination, but only as suspect communities who were then further alienated. Informed by public health research and practice, a new approach is proposed to target populations vulnerable to recruitment, rather than rely only on research of well known terrorist groups and individual perpetrators of terrorist acts. Conclusions: This paper proposes public health research and practice to guard against violent radicalization.
Violent Extremism, Community-Based Violence Prevention, and Mental Health Professionals
The Journal of nervous and mental disease, 2017
New community-based initiatives being developed to address violent extremism in the United States are utilizing mental health services and leadership. This article reviews current approaches to preventing violent extremism, the contribution that mental illness and psychosocial problems can make to violent extremism, and the rationale for integrating mental health strategies into preventing violent extremism. The authors describe a community-based targeted violence prevention model and the potential roles of mental health professionals. This model consists of a multidisciplinary team that assesses at-risk individuals with comprehensive threat and behavioral evaluations, arranges for ongoing support and treatment, conducts follow-up evaluations, and offers outreach, education, and resources for communities. This model would enable mental health professionals in local communities to play key roles in preventing violent extremism through their practice and leadership.
UNESCO-PREV Chair, 2021
This report was produced as part of the PREV-IMPACT project, an initiative of the UNESCO Chair on the Prevention of Radicalization and Violent Extremism (UNESCO-PREV Chair). It is based on semi-directed interviews conducted in an earlier study by the International Centre for the Prevention of Crime (ICPC) (Madriaza, Ponsot, & Marion, 2017) and a focus group conducted by the UNESCO-PREV Chair in Ottawa, Canada in March 2019. The participants in these interviews and the focus group were 57 professionals involved in prevention of violent extremism (PVE), from six different regions of the world: North America, Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa and the Middle East, Asia, and Oceania. The purpose of the present report is to further examine what these professionals had to say about their experiences in delivering PVE programs in the field, and, in particular, about their experiences with the evaluation of such programs.
Terrorism and Political Violence, 2020
Violent radicalization is a complex process that results from multiple influences and experiences across the settings and contexts of an individual’s life. No single pathway or characteristic determines who is at risk for it. Given this understanding, no single intervention aimed at this multiply-determined problem is likely to be successful if it is implemented in isolation. Multidisciplinary team approaches are increasingly seen as holding promise in the prevention and intervention of violent radicalization in the United States and internationally. A multidisciplinary team is typically a group of professionals who are members of different fields of study (psychology, medicine, social work, etc.) who provide a specific service to an individual. Team members independently focus on the issues in which they specialize and activities of the team are coordinated with a common goal. This paper aims to extend current knowledge by addressing questions related to challenges in implementing a multidisciplinary team approach with the capacity to address violent radicalization, presenting potential solutions to these challenges as well as highlighting one multidisciplinary team, Community Connect, that successfully worked with youth identified as being at risk for violence.
Utilizing Criminological Theory to Counter Violent Extremism
Despite politically motivated rhetoric to the contrary, domestic United States policy toward Violent Extremists espousing fundamentalist misinterpretations of Islam are focused on interdiction and prosecution, which contributes to the cycle of radicalization through Strain and Labeling. The Radicalization process relies heavily on Social Learning theory. Restorative Justice and Life Course theories have proven most successful at prevention and rehabilitation of violent extremists. It is recommended that the United States emphasize preventative intervention over prosecution, and seek a closer relationship with Muslims and citizens of Middle Eastern and South Asian decent to better control domestic terrorism.