Abstract

Efforts to ‘de-radicalise’ terrorists and violent extremists have become a major feature of many countries counter-terrorism programmes and policies. This session will explore the issues around the reform and rehabilitation of violent extremists. In doing so, it will examine a variety of de-radicalisation programmes and assess their effectiveness. Starting with a number of community-based and prison-based programmes currently running in the UK, the talk will outline and provide a critical assessment of the theory behind these programmes and will consider how such approaches have differed between countries and conflicts. The evidence around the effectiveness of such work will be explored and comparisons and contrasts will be drawn between programmes designed with different targets in mind ranging from ideologically motivated extremists (such as neo-Nazis), nationalist-separatist terrorists, to contemporary militant Islamist-inspired terrorists.

About the Speaker

Professor Andrew Silke holds a Chair in Criminology at the University of East London where he is the Field Leader for Criminology, and the Programme Director for Terrorism Studies. He has published extensively on terrorism, conflict, crime and policing issues. In the United Kingdom he has been consulted by the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Defence, the prison service, the London Metropolitan Police as well as several other UK police forces. Overseas he has worked with the United Nations, the US Department of Justice, the US Department of Homeland Security, NATO, the European Defence Agency, the European Commission, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Professor Silke has been a much respected contributor to debates within the media. His work has also been the focus of a number of television documentaries primarily on issues relating to terrorism, the psychology of conflict, and the psychology of crisis situations.