Deradicalization Programs

You might be interested in this interview at Science about deradicalization programs, programs that attempt to convince people to abandon extremist mindsets. Here’s a telling quote:

We know that in the vast majority of “lone wolf” cases, family and friends knew about the radicalization process or attack plan. Just look at the recent Manchester concert bombing case, where the attacker’s friends and community members made multiple attempts to alert the authorities. What deradicalization provides is a program in the middle acting as some sort of communicative bridge between security officials, family members, and communities. But the basic mechanism is the same across all groups: You need to have access to the radicalized person, identify the factors driving their ideology, design an intervention plan, and then track its impact.

That the record of deradicalization programs is spotty seems to me to be a reasonable criticism. Isn’t the lack of proven efficacy an equally valid criticism of bombing people and removing their governments?

3 comments… add one
  • CStanley Link

    That the record of deradicalization programs is spotty seems to me to be a reasonable criticism. Isn’t the lack of proven efficacy an equally valid criticism of bombing people and removing their governments?

    Agreed. It’s much easier to say what doesn’t work than to conceive of what will work.

    In the case of Manchester though we see that the approach of vigilance and law enforcement failed, since they appear to have brushed aside at least five reports of suspicious behavior AND some shared intel from the FBI. Somehow we never hear of the after action reports- do the agencies at least try to figure out if these failures are due to incompetence, underfunding, or an oversensitivity to political correctness?

    We do know that the law enforcement approach has successfully stopped some attacks in the planning phase. Doesn’t it make sense to focus on increasing the success rate?

  • mike shupp Link

    Maybe bombing people and toppling their governments isn’t an effective means of changing their behavior, but it’s often ohhhhhhhh! so satisfying on a short term basis. And sometimes, to be honest, there aren’t visible alternatives.
    Maybe FDR and his brain-truster crew ought to have come up with better policies for handling the Japanese, for instance, but once Pearl Harbor got bombed, US choices boiled down to War or Surrender. I suppose once the twin towers toppled in NYC on 9/11 folks in the Bush Administration and elsewhere saw things in much the same light. It’s been a great surprise to many of us Americans that manipulating the behavior of a billion Moslems in several dozen nations isn’t as simple and easy as dropping bombs on a hundred million Japanese with one government. In fact, I suspect, many American’s haven’t yet figured this out.

    Although … as an afterthought …. changing Japanese behavior involved developing A-bombs, which was no small feat. Nobody yet in a position of authority has suggested that expensive elaborate technology should be developed for subjugating offensive foreigners this time ’round — unless you consider waterboarding and drone bombs and electronic snooping as exciting technical advances. I guess sine folks do.

  • mike shupp Link

    sigh. SOME folks do. I can’t spell when the sun’s in my face. Maybe I really am a spammer ….

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