It seeks to raise awareness of the features of prison life and community supervision that could be factors or influences in violent radicalisation. The project will design and pilot staff training programmes for staff who work with prisoners, released prisoners and those on supervision. The training and training materials will be designed from an international standpoint to examine how transferable such training might be across a number of European criminal justice systems. The project uniquely brings together the expertise of an established and respected NGO in Germany, the Violence Prevention Network, with the criminal justice experience of the UK, through London Probation and NOMS, in delivering expert courses for prison and community based staff. The project is developing a unique "through the gate" high quality training package that can be used by staff working with prisoners in prison or those released on licence. Stockwell Green Community Services in the UK are an experienced NGO dedicated to offering resettlement routes into education and employment for those caught up in or in danger of becoming violent radicals. This combination will ensure that the training delivered to staff will provide sufficient awareness of the issues for staff working with prisoners, licensees or offenders in the community.
The targets:
• To research the key influencing factors that can radicalise prisoners and offenders
• To train criminal justice staff working in prisons or with prisoners released on licence in the community to be aware of these factors
• To provide recommendations for improved management and supervision of terrorist related offenders
• To develop a range of training materials that might be used in other EU countries
• To transfer information & learning to other EU countries through a network of interested practitioners within the UK, Germany, The Netherlands & other EU countries
Project Partners
London Probation, UK (lead partner)
Secretaría General de Instituciones Penitenciarias, Spain
National Offender Management Service (NOMS), UK
Stockwell Green Community Services, UK
Conference Permanante European de la Probation (CEP), The Netherlands
Violence Prevention Network (VPN), Germany
University of Bremen, Germany
Project Outputs
- To carry out research on what acts to radicalise prisoners and offenders; current practice and experiences in Europe, with a particular focus on the UK, Germany and the Netherlands; and recommendations for management and supervision of terrorist related offenders.
- To develop a transferable range of training package & materials for use in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and possibly wider EU countries to support Criminal Justice staff working with radicalised offenders.
- 85 Criminal Justice staff trained in the UK and Germany.
- Expert seminars held in the UK and Germnay to highlight issues and share learning of working with violent right-wing extremists and those from a Muslim background
- 1st trans-national Conference held in Spain, January 2010, to inform and develop the training course and to disseminate information.
- 2nd trans-national Conference held in the UK, October 2010 (date to be confirmed), to showcase project’s training pilots, learning and best practise outline and share research in relation to extremism and radicalisation and look at examples of current practice.
- Evaluation of training pilots by the University of Bremen.
- Best practise network of interested practitioners establsihed between partner countries and other EU members states.
