Implementing Prevention: The IVP Guidance

Professor Jon ColeDepartment of Psychological Sciences

Elephants in the room

① “Islamophobia”

② “false positives”

③ “Self fulfilling prophecy”

④ “I’m not an agent of the state”

‘Black Box’ Radicalisation

The Cause

Protest

Direct Action

Violent Extremism/Terrorism

Postal CBRN attack

The Rational Choice Model

The Rational Choice Model

Decision

What to focus on

All behaviour is communication

All behaviour happens for a reason

All behaviour is preceded by a decision

Decisions can be influenced

Prevention Interventions

Universal Selective Indicated

Environmental Legal sanctions Removing social media

Travel restrictions

Developmental Life skills training Family management skills

Therapeutic interventions

Informational Awareness raising Counter narratives Ideological challenge

Beware the ‘Prevention Paradox’ where the greatest harm in a population will occur in those considered at least risk because there are far more of them than those considered “at risk”.

Needs AssessmentSuccessful prevention relies on the early identification of, and intervention with, vulnerable (young) people (elephants 1, 2, and 3).

Frontline staff/community leaders/parents will be in the best position to spot vulnerability and the changes in behaviour indicative of radicalisation (elephant 4).

Structured professional judgment tools will assist their decision making in this safeguarding context (elephants 1, 2, and 4).

The IVP Guidance

Yellow CriteriaIdentify young people who are vulnerable to peer pressure

and potential negative influences of colleagues, friends, and family.

Personal, social, and cultural circumstances may make them particularly vulnerable to recruitment by violent extremists.

Early identification of individuals at this stage should allow supports to be put in place to direct their behaviour away from violence toward constructive, socially appropriate outlets.

Orange Criteria

Identify boundary testing behaviours.

May already have or be establishing a belief system that is supportive of violent extremist behaviour.

This requires sensitive challenge and intervention to increase their critical thinking skills and offer alternatives to violence for addressing problems and issues.

Red Criteria

Identify an increased commitment to the use of violence in support of beliefs.

Require regular monitoring and intensive intervention to change established beliefs and behaviours in support of violent extremism.

Geo-tagged Social Media

Conclusions

Preventing violent extremism means that we must identify and protect vulnerable people before they engage in criminal behaviour.

This necessitates a large number of ‘false positives’ as most vulnerable people will not engage in violent extremism even if they are radicalised.

Waiting until vulnerable people have begun to engage in criminal behaviour may make successful prevention difficult.