The Rule of Law and prevention of violent extremism: policies and practices within the Italian “narrow horizons”

Trevor Calafato; Luca Guglielminetti

English version of the report, edit by Luca Guglielminetti, on the main outcomes in Italy from the European project FAIR - Fighting Against Inmates’ Radicalisation (2018-2019): Traing practitioners, Workshop with inmates, and Feasibility study on an alternative to detention centre for Violent Extremist Offenders (VEOs). Policy reccomandations and and afterwords on Reseaching Radicalisation to Mitigate Extremism Violent Behaviour by Trevor Calafato.

FROM THE VOLUME "SPECTO 2018 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE MULTIDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES IN THE QUASI-COERCIVE TREATMENT OF OFFENDERS." Italy has not suffered terrorist attacks like those that occurred in many other European realities, but it is also one of the few countries still lacking a national strategy to prevent and counter violent radicalization (P/CVE): those policies and programmes structured with the support of local authorities and civil society that goes beyond a strictly security perspective in facing with terrorism and extremism challenges. Is this a paradox? The article initially and briefly describes the characteristics of the counter-terrorism policy and the Italian context of radicalization phenomena to argue how Italy is in an anomalous situation but also privileged in the European scenario thanks to its past experiences of terrorism over the XX century. Faced with the limited risks that have arisen to date, the Authors propose a reflection on the medium and long-term prospects that would lead the country to the optimal situation of activating policies and programs for the prevention of radicalization without the status of emergency with which they were conducted in others European states. The Authors, analyzing the activities of the European FAIR project and the piloting activities carried out until now by awareness, training and prevention in Italian prison system, identify the main critical issues. Finally they suggest some reccomandations of intervention, starting from the multi-agency approach that creates a bridge of fruitful collaboration among national and local level, law enforcement and civil society.

FAIR - Fighting Against Inmates’ Radicalization funded by the Euro- pean Union’s Justice Programme (2014-2020). Grant Agreeement: JUST-AG-2016/JUST-AG-2016-03 PROJECT NUMBER: 763538 The European Commission support for the production of this pub- lication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. 2019 Fondazione Nuovo Villaggio del Fanciullo Onlus, Ravenna Attribuzione - Non commerciale - Non opere derivate 2.5 Italia (CC BY-NC-ND 2.5 IT) Fighting Against Inmates’ RadicaliSation THE RULE OF LAW AND PREVENTION OF VIOLENT EXTREMISM: POLICIES AND PRACTICES WITHIN THE ITALIAN “NARROW HORIZONS” Edit by Luca Guglielminetti on behalf of Fondazione Nuovo Villaggio del Fanciullo “With regard to designing safety and security measures re- lated to violent extremist offenders, it is important that these be based on the rule of law and respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms. The rule of law and human rights are at the bedrock of the democratic worldview and system. This worldview is challenged by extremists who ultimately want to replace it with their own system and rules. Extremist groups will try to attack democratic values by exposing situations in which these values (the rule of law and human rights) are breached. This exposure has the objective of delegitimizing the foundations of democratic of societies. As a result, it is important to protect these values on every level.”. Council of Europe, Handbook for Prison and Probation Service, 2016 Fighting Against Inmates’ Radicalisation FOREWORD The journey that began in October 2017 with the FAIR (Fighting Against In- mates’ Radicalisation) project has come to an end. Two years have passed and it was only thanks to the determination and perseverance of the 10 European partners, including our Foundation (Nuovo Villaggio del Fanciullo), the project leader, that it was possible to achieve the set goals of the complex and weighty issue that is radicalisation. The path was far from easy but was certainly an enriching experience for every participant in the project. The consistent collaboration and synergy between the various European countries involved has led to an in-depth elaboration of a series of documents for the scientific literature at international level and of the current “good practices”, which have become the driving force in the creation of two innovative programmes: a training programme for the operators and an inmates’ workshop which the various European partners have piloted in their respective countries. Despite the presence of different approaches, cultures and legislation, the activities of the FAIR project have pursued the objective of enhancing the knowledge and skills of the practitioners - not only in prisons but also those belonging to civil society and religious institutions (imams and spiritual guides) - in the management of any at-risk behaviour, through a multi- disciplinary approach that has highlighted the multiple factors, including criti- cal ones, linked to this delicate and demanding phenomenon. The excellent work carried out by the two FAIR scientific coordinators, Diletta Berardinelli, who was later joined by Luca Guglielminetti, supported by the Foundation’s design staff, Stefania Mariano and Stefania Giovagnoni and by experts, Ms. Yasmine Refaat, Andrea Maestri Esq. and Ms. Francesca Polidori made it possible to harmonize divergent ideas and proposals, and reach our goals. Thanks to the collaboration of professionals, associations, NGOs, religious bod- ies such as the UCOII, as well as national and local guarantors for prisoners’ rights, FAIR has undoubtedly made an important contribution both to the cur- rent scientific research on the subject and to the practices adopted by civil so- ciety. It is particularly important to emphasise that the FAIR project brought together professionals, private and public organisations, religious institutions and legal and political bodies from a number of European countries with the ultimate aim 5 of implementing collections of practices, recommendations on systems, leg- islation and policies, on the prevention of violent extremism in prison, includ- ing a feasibility study of a model that highlights the benefits deriving from the creation of a “multi-agency”, public-private centre, as an alternative to prison for the reception, coordination and management of prevention and contrast activities for those at risk of violent radicalisation, inside or outside penitentiary institutions. I would like to thank all the individuals and professionals who have been in- volved in this experience and who have lent their expertise1. I sincerely hope that this document will be a useful planning tool for future action in this area. Ravenna, 11 Settember 2019 Patrizio Lamonaca Managing Director Nuovo Villaggio del Fanciullo Foundation and FAIR Project Manager 1 All the European partners of FAIR: University of Malta (MT); The European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control, affiliated with the United Nations – HEUNI (FI); Arq Psychotrauma Expert Group (NL); EuroCoop, Institute for European Research and Development (SI); Social Innovation Fund – SIF (LT); DARTKE (HU); The Trebnje Center for Education and Culture – CIK Trebnje (SI); The Center for Promoting Lifelong Learning – CPIP (RO); Portuguese Association of Psychology Discussions – APCdP (PT). In addition to those mentioned in the following three parts, we would also like to thank for their collaboration with the Foundation: Alessia Rebeggiani, Cinzia Pizzardo, Roxana Salome e Fatima Lafram. 6 Fighting Against Inmates’ Radicalisation PART 1: THE TRAINING PATH Introduction Over the course of January and February 2019, the European FAIR project (Fighting Against Inmates’ Radicalisation)1 activated several training modules for operators working with prisoners. Over 150 individuals were involved, the majority of whom were external to the penitentiary administration, but had been consulted on one of the recurring themes in recent years: the phenom- enon of radicalisation in prisons. For the first time in Italy, spiritual guides and psychologists, inmate guarantors, volunteers, social welfare services and non- profit workers, met with experts, researchers and observers to evaluate policies and practices aimed at integrating the resilient approach with that of security, predominant among law enforcement. What exactly does this mean? In order to explain it, we will review the important features of the training courses carried out, with the results and questions that emerged from the comparisons, the interventions and the evaluation question- naires given to the participants. As often happens when training conditions are optimal - that is informal set- tings, unbound by political correctness, with a great deal of interaction and mo- ments of reflection in a group - we, the coordinators, end up learning more than we had to teach, well aware that the people sitting in front of us were no new- comers to the topics, on the contrary, they were all endowed with knowledge and skills deriving directly from work and professional experience. Giving back to a wider audience the most significant things we have now learned, is not only a duty to the European Commission, and indirectly to the citizens who financed the FAIR project with their taxes, but also a commitment to share the knowledge and practices of two realities, prison and violent radi- calisation, which in public discourse are full of many clichés, prejudices and propaganda. What we can reveal in advance, in brief, is that what emerged in these training courses, both as root causes of macro-geopolitical radicalisation, and of local causes at micro level (R. Coolseat, 2016), is that the key protec- tion factor lies in the application of fundamental human rights: the set of rules, which under the more general term of ‘Rule of Law’, has toned down, over the last few centuries, the monopoly of State force. See the website: http://fair-project.eu/en/ 7 The European and International framework The FAIR project is one of many projects funded by the various European Com- mission programs on radicalisation and terrorism launched in the last decade. Presented by the Nuovo Villaggio del Fanciullo Foundation in Ravenna, the leading organization together with 9 other partners from Finland, Lithuania, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, Holland, Portugal and Malta, within the frame- work of the Directorate General Justice department, it has a duration of 24 months and will conclude in October 2019. The aim is to analyze and study the phenomenon of radicalisation among inmates to provide cognitive and practi- cal tools to prevent and combat the phenomenon. In practice it was a matter of elaborating a series of scientific literature documents, good practices, analysis of training needs, feasibility studies, followed by carrying out training activities addressed to staff and prisoners alike, elaborating the related impact assess- ment tools. The framework of the policies into which this kind of European projects are inserted deserves special attention as it signals a change of standard with re- spect to the response that followed 11 September 2001. The Bush administra- tion reacted with ‘War on Terror’ against ‘rogue states’ and the Patriot Act, with the related abuses of fundamental freedoms - from the ‘special’ Guantanamo detention camp to torturing in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, to extraordinary ren- dition - to name but a few. On the other hand, the Obama administration indi- cated a change of course, at least on a semantic and theoretical level, starting from Obama’s speech at the University of Cairo (“A New Beginning”) in 2009, the subsequent announcement that “Global War on Terror is over “, and “The White House Summit to Counter Violent Extremism” in February 2015. In the” Ministerial Meeting Statement” we can, in fact find these words: «Reaffirmed that intelligence gathering, military force, and law en- forcement alone will not solve – and when misused can in fact ex- acerbate – the problem of violent extremism and reiterated that comprehensive rule of law and community-based strategies are an essential part of the global effort to counter violent extremism and, like all measures aimed at addressing the terrorist threat, should be developed and implemented in full compliance with international law, in particular international human rights law, International refu- gee law, and international humanitarian law, as well as with the prin- ciples and purposes of the UN Charter».2 The term “terrorism”, the definition of which the international forum has never reached a common agreement, and whose meanings are politically equivocal and exploitable, is replaced by “violent extremism”. It is recognized that hard power tools, the expression of the monopoly of the State force, alone are not 2 See https://2009-2017.state.gov/j/ct/cvesummit/releases/237673.htm 8 Fighting Against Inmates’ Radicalisation enough. Indeed, when used outside the rule of law, they are both counterpro- ductive and harmful. This premise is followed by the addition of soft power tools based on full re- spect for rights and strategies aimed at “enhancing the efforts of local com- munities that intervene, allowing the process of radicalisation to be interrupted before an individual engages in criminal activities”. The intention is also to eliminate the correlation with Islam and the reduction to the Islamist origin that are presented when referring to terrorism in the media and in public opinion. However, it is not simply a question of using politically correct language on the part of a liberal administration, but also of acknowl- edging that there are many origins of political violence: in the USA and North- ern Europe the majority of subversive political violence is characterised by the extreme right, which takes on the role of white supremacism, neo-Nazism or Islamophobia. In the European Union, Europol data (TESAT 2018)3 remind us that the separatist origin is still by far the most prevalent in the number of at- tempted or successful attacks. Europe has been anticipating these policies since 2005, driven by the UK’s Pre- vent policies. The various strategy papers of the Commission begin to address radicalisation: the “EU Strategy on Radicalisation” adopted in 2005 and revised in 2008 and 2014, while recognizing that actions against radicalisation and ter- rorism fall mainly within the competences and responsibilities of the Member States of the European Union, noted the importance and added value both in creating a structure at European level for policies and good practices, and in developing an active role of the actors, including civil and private, of local com- munities (“Stockholm Programme for the period 2010-2014”). Even if the language has been out of sync for some years, in Europe there is now talk of “radicalisation leading to terrorism”, in the USA of “radicalisation leading to violent extremism”, the sense, in both cases, is to support the prevention of terrorism - in other words, to prevent the attack with law enforcement agencies, intelligence and laws - a type of prevention that works on the “resilient” factors by which we can intervene on an individual before his/her recruitment or to fa- cilitate his/her disengagement from the violent group - namely to prevent and counter the process of violent radicalisation and facilitate “de-radicalisation”. Behind the terminology At the basis of these terms, and of radicalisation in particular, we find many studies on the process of violent radicalisation, or rather the initial attempt by psychologists and sociologists to create a model of the path by which an indi- vidual arrives at recruitment, at dehumanisation of the enemy and the practice 3 See https://www.europol.europa.eu/activities-services/main-reports/europe- an-union-terrorism-situation-and-trend-report-2018-tesat-2018 9 of violence. The attempt was to analyse the biographies of terrorists in order to produce a predictive profile of the psyche and behaviour of the terrorist. These studies have been the subject of a wide debate which we cannot explain ex- cept to highlight some aspects that we have used in the development of the FAIR project. We can, at any rate, report the critical review on the studies conducted by John Horgan (2014), which highlights a picture that the author himself defines as ‘discouraging’, even if slightly less negative than in his first edition of 2005: «... current terrorism analyses remain short-term, contingent, often lacking in detail, politicized and very specific». Errors in method, data collection, verification and interpretation and a lack of field research have made the results scarce and of little use for the counter-terrorism actors: policy makers and security and intelli- gence forces. «The tendency of academics to focus exclusively on their own dis- cipline» and therefore the consequent difficulty of integrating other knowledge for a multidisciplinary approach to the complex phenomenon, was a further fac- tor in the failure of the results obtained, according to Horgan, who rightly under- lines, in the first chapter, what is one of the most critical points: the ambiguity of the same term terrorism, with the difficulties in finding a common definition that clearly defines it, and the lack of awareness that the phenomenon specularly concerns State terrorism and terrorism against the State. The former has pro- duced many more victims than the latter. Horgan writes in 2014: «Without a doubt, throughout history, States have been responsible for the use of terrorist tactics more frequently than the small clandes- tine anti-state movements we call “terrorist” groups. This aspect of the discourse on terrorism may be surprising, as we do not dedicate the same attention to the terrorism perpetrated by states and govern- ments as we do to terrorism by non-state movements». During the Syrian conflict, Horgan recalls the Oxford Research Group’s data on the 11,000 Syrian children killed by the al-Assad regime only since the begin- ning of the conflict at the end of 2013, introducing a new type of state terror- ism that aims to suppress the population by intentionally targeting children. And he reaches his conclusions, with rare and lucid pragmatism: «... we already know how, in many respects, we probably should not respond to terrorism». The question of “how to fight terrorists” is ultimately a question of priorities to be as- signed to one’s goals: “What do we want to do? If the elimination of terrorists is a fundamental goal for a government, then the implications become obvious, as we are observing on a large scale with the drone programme”. The programme that will be called “The Guantanamo” of the Obama administration, in other words, the on-field betrayal of the good intentions and prerequisites regarding the rule of law declared in the White House Summit. 0 Fighting Against Inmates’ Radicalisation Behind the terminology lies another significantly relevant question raised by Sedgwick (2010): «The study of root causes was for a long time considered to be po- litically incorrect in many Western government quarters. Peter Neu- mann, Director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisa- tion (ICSR) in London, states: “Following the attacks on the United States on 11 September 2001 […] it suddenly became very difficult to talk about ‘the roots of terrorism’ which some commentators claimed was an effort to excuse and justify the killing of innocent civilians […] It was through the notion of radicalisation that a discussion […] be- came possible again”». In other words, after September 11, one could not investigate the historical and geopolitical reasons, for example, of the path made by Osama bin Laden and his mujahidin as freedom fighters in the 1980s, supported by the US to inflict the coup de grace on the Soviet militarism in the final conflict of the “cold war” in Afghanistan, to when they began to attack American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. The use of the term ‘radicalisation’ instead of ‘root causes of terrorism’ has allowed us to recover a factor of primary importance to under- stand the phenomenon that was not born out of nothing, from the mere social deviance of an individual, much less from his “ madness “, but, as Orla Lynch (2018) observes in an interview of 2018 in which she presents her research ac- tivity at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, it is the ideologically divergent movements that produce an action-and-reaction cycle of political violence. Lynch believes that: «Terrorism and political violence cannot be studied in a vacuum, and the context to the violence - including antecedent activities, the ac- tion of counterterrorism agencies and oppositional groups - is highly relevant». In other words, involvement in violent groups, violent radicalisation, is always reciprocal; not only on the terrain of opposing extremisms of right-wing and left-wing, Islamist and Islamophobic, “of the State” and “against the State”. What we have tried to discuss in our courses, therefore, primarily concerned a terminological clarification, in which the root causes of terrorism and the po- larisation of the parties in conflict, result in not only observing the radicalisation process that concerns the individual behind bars, but a broader horizon in the wake of what Horgan (2014) points out: «In reality, there is no good reason to suppose that the push-and-pull motivational factors of an aspiring terrorist are necessarily very different from those that act on a person who considers serving his country in the armed forces»4. 4 Interview to Horgan J., Don’t Ask Why People Join the Islamic State - Ask How, in webzine “Vice” Sep 10, 2014 New and old terrorism Another critical issue around which a wide debate has developed is that be- tween those who privilege the aspects of novelty and diversity of the phenom- enon and who, vice versa, their traits of continuity and persistence (G.M. Ceci, 2014). From the point of view of didactic effectiveness, we have chosen to start from the common traits. We did this, in the first part of our training activity, propos- ing the sequence of a film, followed by an evaluation, through group work, of what the participants thought were the common factors that we can still find in modern terrorism. The choice of film may be surprising - «in actual fact it has never been appreci- ated by many» (M. Schiavoni, 2017) - a 1963 film, set in Nazi-occupied Ven- ice, “The Terrorist” played by Gian Maria Volonté, and from the title one under- stands how the director, Gianfranco De Bosio, addressed a difficult topic that was ambiguous and far from the glorification of the Resistance, typical of the cinematography of the time. We used «the long sequence of the debate among the various representatives of the CLN (the National Liberation Committee), which takes up a good 10 min- utes of the narration with a highly specialised and intricate dialogue. (...) The long take circumnavigates several times around the discussion table giving it expressionist traits, from Brechtian theatre, where Power, this time embodied by a CLN committee, searches for compromise forms in the face of an inconvenient element» (M. Schiavoni, 2017). In truth, a counter-power compared to the “offi- cial” Nazi and “Republican” one established in Venice: the CLN has to deal with a hostage-taking situation, at risk of being shot by the Germans following an at- tack with a civil victim, executed by a “lone wolf”, a resistance fighter of “Justice and Freedom” who took the initiative to initiate hostilities in the city without the prior political consent of the Committee. This long sequence, together with the short one immediately preceding it, which takes place in the typography where the resistance fighter/”terrorist” corrects the draft print of the demands, allowing the various groups to identify a remarkable series of analogies: from the necessity of the claim of responsibility and of the propaganda, with its legitimate/illegitimate goals and values/nega- tives; to the blame of the civil victim hit in the attack; from the presence of po- litical and military levels in the organisations, be they legitimate or illegitimate; to the logistical, supply and financing needs that these require, as well as their different levels of illegality and secrecy. The key point, which almost all the groups highlighted independently, was the one related to the need for political recognition of the CLN. The final compro- 2 Fighting Against Inmates’ Radicalisation mise, which we witness in the scene of the film, is articulated as a mediation of the Christian Democrats Party and the Church, aimed at obtaining this recog- nition, offering to suspend the attacks in exchange for the release of the hos- tages. Most of the participants then identified the focus of the problem already the- orised by the historian of Political Doctrines, Alessandro Campi: since 1945 «there has been no declaration of war, because conflicts are fought between ad- versaries who do not recognise each other». Hence the success of the phenom- enon since the second post-war period: “terrorist” is a label for an enemy that does not want to be recognised, while its purpose, “the purpose of terrorism”, is precisely that of being recognised as a political subject. The reference to the diatribe between the firm front and that of pro-negotiation during the weeks of the abduction of Aldo Moro by the BR in 1978, is easily interpreted, but we can, at least partially generalise: the political management of kidnappings for terrorism is a good indicator for evaluating the willingness to negotiate with or not, whether to recognize the “enemy” or not. Refusing to negotiate means privileging the logic for which the priority is the elimination of terrorists, if the logic is to stay out of the conflict, or to lean towards its resolution. Ultimately, this decision is the fulcrum of the anti-terrorism policies which every State finds itself up against. The final outcome of the Italian so-called “Years of Lead” is the part of history to which less attention is given. La guerra è finita (The war is over) by Monica Galfrè (2013) is one of the rare titles of a research on a phase in which terror- ists, now considered former, who in their thousands have passed through Ital- ian prisons, are substantially recognised. The aree omogenee (homogeneous areas) become a political subject who, with the mediation on one hand of the Church, participate informally in the parliamentary process of the Gozzini law for the reform of penal execution. That which also precedes the “law of dis- sociation” from armed struggle and the prizes of external execution and the reduction of sentences for its former militants. Among the guest speakers at our training course was Mario Ferrandi, former member of far-left terrorist group, Prima Linea, who not only spoke of his affili- ation, but more generally of the paths in which, over the last 30/40 years, the various phases of conciliation between the three protagonists of that bloody season: between the State and terrorists with the so-called “reward” legisla- tion in the 1980s; between the State and civilian victims, with the legislation on their compensation rights, memory and status in the first decade of 2000; and between former terrorists and victims in that partial path of reparative justice, reported in Il libro dell’Incontro (G. Bertagna, A. Ceretti, C. Mazzucato, 2015). 3 Prison and constitutions Dealing with violent radicalisation in prison is part of the more well-known de- bate on the possibility that rehabilitative paths may actually take place within this institution. The doubt concerns the concrete possibility of implementing “treatment” and “re-education” in the penitentiary context, as foreseen by the Italian Constitution. Luigi Ferrajoli maintains that: « … the educational or re-socialising goal advocated by all these vari- ous doctrines is not feasible. An abundance of literature, supported by a centuries-old and painful experience, has in fact proven that there are no emendatory or therapeutic penalties and that prison, in particular, is a criminal place of miseducation and the solicitation of crime. Repression and education are mutually incompatible, as are deprivation of freedom and freedom itself which forms the sub- stance and the presupposition of education, so that the only thing that can be expected from prison is the hope that it produces the least amount of desocialisation and miseducation as possible» (Fer- rajoli, 1989: 259 s.). During our training we privileged the use of direct testimony over the purely theoretical approach. Instead of proposing the answer to Ferrajoli provided by Pier Cesare Bori (2001), we opted for the direct narration to the participants of our courses by an ex-prisoner, Samad Bannaq, who Bori “saved” from possible radicalisation. From the story of this Moroccan boy, an inmate in the Dozza pris- on of Bologna, we learn how Bori’s approach worked in practice. The approach is outlined in the essay Pena, Detenzione, Etica, Culture (2001): «It would be worthwhile to discuss the issue of “re-education” with a wider scope. The term itself evokes totalitarian and repressive atmo- spheres. I believe that many objections to “re-education” could fall in the presence of a secular, pluralistic and critical, non-repressive and non-heteronomous approach. At this point, I would rather speak of commitment to the promotion of culture in prison, as an essen- tial contribution to the rediscovery of human dignity (there is a con- nection to be discovered between punishment and honour, dignity, BURCKERT, 1998: 208; see BENVENISTE, 1976: 422 seq.). I would like to characterise this commitment by insisting on a few points: - culture as a space distinct from education (which is of course very important, in its various degrees, including at university level - see CHIRIBIRI, 2000); - culture as a space distinct from religion (but not opposed to it, rath- er as a “spiritual” space, including the two languages, religious and secular); 4 Fighting Against Inmates’ Radicalisation - culture that is commensurate with the great authors, above all the ancients, of the various historical areas, without excluding oral tradi- tions (I allow myself a polemic vein against a precocious of “creativ- ity” which is not substantiated precisely by culture as knowledge of the great models ); - culture as liberation through knowledge (for example, starting from one of the founding texts of European culture, Book VII of the Re- public by Plato, with the image of men bound in a prison); - culture as self-cultivation and care of the self (the Foucault of ‘Self- care’ could be asserted against the Foucault of “Discipline and Pun- ish)”; - culture as work on oneself, in the direction of awareness (one could recall the positive experience at the Central Jail in Tiliar, in New Delhi, in collaboration with the Vipassana Research Institute, Sarangi 2000, 96 s.) and consequently - one hopes - of moral change; - culture that is a powerful help in the central libraries of the prison and develops through personal reading (with the assurance of the necessary silence!); - culture as an ideal space in which to involve all those who operate in the penitentiary context». An encounter, between Samad Bannaq and Pier Cesare Bori, which starts from a book that was donated by the latter and used by Bannaq to obtain cigarette filters from the title page. It continued with an open and wide-ranging dialogue: from Islam to geo-politics. «He changed my perspective: he didn’t preach to me, like the others».5 According to a logic perfectly consistent with what is recom- mended by the best practices for the prevention of radicalisation and violent extremisms that ask to promote spaces for the discussion of resentment, the sense of injustice, loss and fear. Safe spaces for exploring ideas, even unpopu- lar or politically incorrect ones, are part of the solution, not the problem. «We need to enable educators and community leaders to discuss precisely the is- sues used to mobilise sympathy and support for extremists, but we need to get there before the extremists» (A. Barzegar, S. Powers, N. El Karhili, 2016 ), in other words, the recruiters. An experience which carried on the legacy of the historian after his death in 2012, with the project “Rights, Duties, Solidarity. A journey between Constitu- tions and cultures at the Dozza prison in Bologna”, conceived by Ignazio De Francesco of the Piccola Famiglia dell’Annunziata, Islamologist and volunteer of the Avoc association, with the support of the Legislative Assembly of the Emilia Romagna region and the Guarantor of detainees. Starting from the comparison between the Italian Constitution and those that emerged in the countries of the “Arab Spring”, with the support of jurists and cultural mediators, the group of inmates along with Samad Bannaq, all from different cultural backgrounds, 5 from an interview with Diego Motta, Avvenire, 6 January 2017 5 made a “journey” without a protection network: exchanging opinions in a frank and clear way with the aim of rewriting a constitution of rights and common val- ues. “Dustur” was the title of the documentary film directed by Marco Santarelli (2016), which recounts the first edition of this experience. In it we find the Rule of law, the comparison of rights and the values that unite or divide. In this case they are not abstract statements, barely applied in fact as in the aforementioned “doctrine” of Barak Obama on violent extremism, but a dense intercultural dialogue that in practice applies the same principle at the base of many activities of prevention/”de-radicalisation”: a role-play that acts on the identities of the participants through rights and values. Similarly to Brit- ish projects such as “Being Scottish, Being Muslim”, what is practiced as re- gards rights/values, in the “journey” of Samad Bannaq and his companions in the “Dozza” prison, is the contrast to the narrowing of the cognitive lens that induces to focus on one right/value as the most important, with the exclusion of the others, as emerged in Integrative Complexity Thinking (Boyd-MacMillan, 2016). The latter is an approach recently developed by the University of Cam- bridge, based on the results of cognitive sciences, in particular, research con- ducted on the limbic brain; the system that provides the first response to threats and dangers, traumas and injustices suffered, be they real or perceived. This part of our brain would also be responsible for the Manichaean perception of the world in black and white, in good and bad, in us and them, in the polarisa- tion between “in-group” and “out-group”; that is, the narrowing of the cognitive lens which, focusing on individual and specific rights/values, omits the broader spectrum of what we call “universal” and leads us to welcome to “radical” ide- ologies and political agendas. Naturally it is possible to object that activities aimed at recovering the set of “universal” values maintain a “re-educational” connotation of a if not totalitari- an, at least culturally “neo-colonial” nature. It could indeed be said that they are still our western world, universal rights. But the logic of the comparison, both in the relationship between Samad Bannaq and Pier Cesare Bori and in the other experiences, is transcultural: «(...) the future belongs not to multiculturalism, that is to the lazy coexistence of universes closed to each other and that each recruit their own members, but to transculturalism, the individual crossing of cultures, the result of education and freedom. In other words, the story is not over» (M. Augè, 2015). As Samad explains, the confrontation with Pier Cesare is nourished by the re- valuation of Arab and Islamic cultures. Thus, the path of construction of a “Dus- tur”, or that of a “role play” between the Muslim or Scottish identity, is not to demonstrate the Western superiority of Scottish values or of the Italian consti- tution. The logic lies precisely in the path or in the game between the bearers of different identities/values/rights: it is the construction of the bridge between differences that “opens the story” and that gives the participants of these expe- 6 Fighting Against Inmates’ Radicalisation riences the freedom to reinvent themselves, to “re-imagine” a different future outside of prison. Religion - fear and rights The Islamic religion has been the obsession combined with terrorism and radi- calisation in prison over the past 15 years, both in research and in the media and in anti-terrorism practices. We obviously could not avoid the subject in our courses. For that matter, in the focus groups that had preceded the training activity, the civil operators had highlighted a gap in the knowledge gap of both Islam and how the prison administration managed the phenomenon in prison. Also in this case the prevalent approach was to involve, not so much the experts of Islam and the history of religions, but rather those who practice it and ad- dress it in the prison context. Given the root causes approach to the phenomenon in general - that is, the geopolitical origins of the various armed conflicts, including terrorism - a brief excursus on post-colonialism in the Arab countries was carried out in relation to Islamist-based terrorism. In particular regarding the two key turning points, the Sykes-Picot agreement during the First World War, and the role of Osama bin Laden’s mujahidin at the time of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan at the end of the Cold War. Paolo Di Motoli spoke on the French debate on the rela- tionship between Islam and radicalisation, and Nicola Di Mauro outlined the development of political Islam, nurtured over time by different ideologies in its main currents of pan-Arabism and pan-Islamism. Ibrahim Gabriele Iungo, of the Al-Azhar Observatory for the Contrast to Extremism, spoke on the history of in- terpretation schools of Islam. The FAIR project training also had a specific target in civil society: the spiritual guides who operate within the penitentiary system, specifically chaplains and imams. A session reserved exclusively for the chaplains of the Piedmont area, and another - in collaboration with the UCOII, the Union of Islamic Communi- ties of Italy - at the Islamic Centre of Brescia in the presence of about 50 imams with the participation of Oomar Sharif Mulbocus, an ex-extremist of the British Islamist scene of the 1990s, today a trainer who has walked the path of de-radi- calisation and disengagement, and provided participants with practical coun- selling tools, assuming that both their theological basis, and their common lan- guage and culture are not sufficient elements to start a relationship of trust and constructive dialogue when faced with “radicalised” prisoners. In the above session in Brescia, as in all the others, the president of the Union of Italian Islamic Communities (UCOII), Yassin Lafram illustrated the path of the protocol between the DAP (Prison Administration Department) and the UCOII which was signed in 2015 to promote the access of ministers of worship to eight prisons. The protocol envisaged a pilot activity of six months of experi- mentation and today, although not renewed, it continues de facto in some re- 7 alities, but the objective of guaranteeing the constant presence of the imams within the Italian penitentiary institutions clearly remains very far off. In other words, the right to worship provided for by our constitution has not yet been established as a system for inmates of the Muslim faith, just as the presence of an Islamic prayer room exclusively for this purpose in Italian prisons is not yet guaranteed. The absence of an agreement between the State and Italian Mus- lim associations certainly weighs on these deficits: thus the state of the rights of Muslims in prison is also the reflection of the problem on a larger scale of the definition of rights and duties for the approximately 1,683,000 Muslim residents in our country.6 Italy therefore lags behind in European policies, such as the objective of the RAN policy paper7 and as emerged from “Extreme radicalism in prison: an em- pirical research” (L. Ravagnami, C.A. Romano, 2017), which hope to create a penitentiary climate and environment where the respect and minimum rights provided for by the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) are con- ditio sine qua non when starting any path of recovery and re-education, even more so in the case of programmes of prevention or counter to the radicalisa- tion of a jihadist origin. Lacking the political will to simply regulate aspects of Islamic worship both in our society and in everyday life in prisons, the result is that good practices are an exception in a few penitentiary institutions. In other words, the logic of the prison administration prevails, according to which the basic rights of Muslim prisoners are a concession and not a precondition without which there is the risk of stirring up feelings of hatred and frustration towards the institutions. This highlights a paradox, in which Islam does not receive the same recognition in the penitentiary system as other religions: that is, a resource available to the inmate for reflection on his/her mistakes and for reconciliation with him/her self and the world, a role preventing recidivism in general. Islam orthopraxy should be a signal to be noted in the risk assessment tools, to monitor the risk of violent radicalisation in prisoners, used by the penitentiary staff in reports to be sent to the Central Investigative Unit (“N.I.C.”)and then to the Committee of Strategic Analysis for Counterterrorism (“C.A.S.A.”)at the Ministry of Internal Affairs. A further paradox lies in the fact that the penitentiary administration seems to prefer the proliferation of “self-made Imams”, self-proclaimed, rather than fol- lowing the pilot practices that have introduced imams trained and esteemed by their local community, and therefore by the inmates themselves, who conduct the salat, Friday prayers, in Arabic and Italian, focusing their sermons on themes such as forgiveness, reconciliation or interreligious dialogue, such as the figure 6 See: IDOS, Dossier Statistico Immigrazione. 2018 7 RAN P&P – practitioners working paper, Dealing with radicalisation in a prison and probation context, 2016 8 Fighting Against Inmates’ Radicalisation of Isa (Jesus of Nazareth) or Maryam (Mary), present in the Koran, which offer clearly positive elements to deconstruct forms of prejudice and hatred towards Christianity (D. Berardinelli, 2017). Other rights and other places Worshipping rights are only a part of the Italian penitentiary framework. Throughout the FAIR project courses, both lawyers and the representatives of the National Guarantor of the Rights of Persons in Custody or Deprived of their Liberty were involved. Local Guarantors attended a specific course on inmates’ rights held in Turin. The field of rights has widened, stretching beyond those connected to freedom of worship, places of worship, even beyond the prison. The reports of the Na- tional Guarantor, carried out by Antonella Dionisi and Giovanni Suriano, in fact highlighted many issues during the visit of their office to the AS2 High Secu- rity sections in the Sardinian penitentiaries of Sassari and Nuoro, where a high number of inmates with sentences or processes related to terrorism are impris- oned: A) the distance from family and/or social reference figures: the penitentiaries are difficult to reach and external contact is difficult even by telephone as it is forbidden to call mobile telephone numbers. This creates geographical isola- tion that stigmatises the “different” individuals. B) a difficult customised management of the inmate whose danger is evaluated with risk assessment tools, not based on defined protocols and specific proce- dures in full respect of the confidentiality and protection of personal data, and in a context within which the “radicalised individual of Islamic origin” does not have the support of frontliners capable of communicating in languages other than Italian due to the insufficient number of cultural mediators. C) a state where the principle of non-discrimination is disregarded in very many circumstances - obliging the inmate to use the Italian language in correspon- dence, the high costs or the scarce availability of halal food, and internal com- munications to the prison population that adopt a too specific and bureaucratic vocabulary, often incomprehensible for the inmates. In addition to the rights to profess one’s faith freely, there are therefore the de- ficiencies of the rights to privacy, to family and affective relationships, to un- derstanding and being understood in internal and external communication to the prison and, more generally, to be able to benefit from a programme, if not of “de-radicalization”, at least of “treatment”, oriented to fill the “void” of the sentence which is configured as a time at risk of inhuman and degrading treat- ment. A similar situation for the state of rights is present outside the penitentiaries, ad- 9 dressing the detention centres for repatriation and one of the main instruments for preventing terrorism used in our country: the administrative deportation of the foreigner. Rarely analyzed by the very academics of terrorism, and objects of debate more internationally than on a national level (F. Marrone, 2017), we know that deportation are a tool that the Ministry of Internal Affairs claims to be very effective and that the number has had an exponential increase in the last 4 years. If the data of the ministerial ones are known for “reasons of public order or security of the State” or for “reasons of prevention of terrorism”, the prefecto- rial deportation are not equally publicised, let alone studied. They are followed only by teams of volunteer lawyers. As explained by Maurizio Veglio of the Association for Legal Studies on Immigration, speaking to inmate Guarantors during their training in Turin, illustrating the cases of two Somali citizens. Their judicial process between prison, detention centres for repatriation (“CPR”) and various appeals illustrate, once again, the destruction of the rule of law towards foreigners coming from an area with a long history of endogenous conflicts, such as Somalia. With regard to the deportation issued by the Minister of Internal Affairs, we know that they are often accompanied by inadequate motivation, through a third party with respect to investigative acts protected by secrecy or generic reports, perhaps coming from information services for State security, which can only be appealed in the Regional Administrative Court of Lazio, according to the rules of the administrative process code (art. 13, co. 11, TU, as amended by art. 3, paragraph 7, of the 104 of Legislative Decree 2 July 2010, No. 104). The legality profile of these deportations is commented on by the ASGI (the Associa- tion for Judicial Studies on Immigration) document, edited by Guido Savio Esq. (2016), as follows: «According to the administrative law of legitimacy, a judicial review of deportation measures for reasons of public order or state security is reduced to an extrinsic examination aimed only at verifying the formal adequacy of the motivation, without overlapping or modify- ing the assessment of merit expressed by the government authority. This approach affects the effectiveness of the right of defence of the foreign recipient of the ministerial provision and weakens the juris- dictional control over the administrative acts provided for by the art. 113 of the Constitution and the “privileged faith” enjoyed by the po- litical act of high administrative discretion is only partially justified by the delicacy of the matter in question, as the vague assumptions of public order and state security may also include conduct not directly detrimental to protected interests, such as manifestations of thought or political practices deemed not to conform to the dominant politi- cal ideology and practice». In view of the reduced risks that Islamist terrorism presents to our country (L. 20 Fighting Against Inmates’ Radicalisation Vidino, 2017) confirmed by the numbers of foreign fighters (124), of foreign fighter returned to Italy (6 on Italian soil), and of subjects imprisoned for real legacies to terrorism (56), it is legitimate to raise some questions on the hun- dreds of ministerial deportations (349) from 2015 to 26th November 2018. Resilience In the face of conflicts, threats of terrorism, but also in the face of total institu- tion, prison or detention centres for repatriation, there is a positive common de- nominator: resilience. Previously, we discussed the case of the relationship be- tween Samad Bannaq and Pier Cesare Bori, but during the training activity we had two other stories of the strong ability of individuals to react when placed in extreme conditions. The first is that of a person kidnapped by jihadists in Syria in 2015 and released after several months of imprisonment, Father Jacques Mourad of the “Al Khalil” community founded by Father Paolo dall’Oglio. Reported in detail in his book, available in French, Un moine en otage (2018), not only the root causes of the proliferation of armed groups in Syria emerge from his story, but also the de- tails of his release which are miraculous and testify that faith and non-violence can be a weapon capable of displacing even the self-proclaimed Islamic State. In fact, during his imprisonment, first spent alone, then together with the 200 parishioners of the community of Al Qariatayn captured after a few months by ISIS, Father Jacques is led by his torturers to a small room. Aware that his time has come, he sits down on the ground in front of six mujahidins just arrived from Mosul to deliver a message from Al Baghdadi. The message read by an elderly Emir of Saudi origin reported four possible outcomes of his abduction. The first was to kill him and his community; the second to sell them as slaves; the third request a ransom; the fourth was the Manna, Al Mann in Arabic. A bibli- cal expression that means “gift” and that in the Koran assumes the meaning of “granting life”. The message of Al Baghdadi ends with the choice for the latter option and to the question of why he had made this decision with regard to himself and his parishioners, the answer was: «You, Christians of Qaraytan, have not embraced weapons against Muslims». Father Jacques confirms that: «As a community we have given up taking up arms. I firmly opposed attempts to recruit community youths from armed groups who came to the village. Our community was not willing to fight against those who had been their neighbours. The fruit of being missionaries, workers of peace, was understood». A small tale of “spared blood” among the horrors, with hundreds of thousands of civilians affected and millions of refugees perpetuated by ISIS, by the al- Assad regime and other actors on the Syro-Iraqi scene. The second story concerns an Italian mother who converted to Islam and saw her son take the path of violent radicalisation. Youssef Zaghba, a 22-year-old 2 Italian-Moroccan, who on June 3, 2017, with two other young terrorists, led the attack on London Bridge which claimed the lives of 8 people and the perpetra- tors themselves. As in her book Nel nome dichi (2017), Valeria Collina took part in the FAIR project by exposing her life, thoughts, problems and errors, with a frankness and courage that all participants immediately perceived as a rare thing. Many elements emerge from her story: from the family and religious con- text to the geopolitical one, from the role of television and the web to that of sexuality, from law enforcement to the local Islamic community, to name but a few. The profile of Youssef is not so close to the home grown terrorists of the recent attacks in France and Belgium as to those of the attack on the Rambla in Barcelona and, more generally, to what has already been described since 1983 by A. Russell and Browman H Miller (1983): predominantly young males in their twenties, single, two-thirds of which have medium-high education and family class, uprooted and mobile, “possessed”, that is, victimised, by the suffering of their people. Valeria Collina is strong in her willingness to understand, as well as in her com- mitment to help prevent the phenomenon and represents the first case in Italy of a mother who chooses with great humility to dedicate her future to interrupt- ing the process that involved her son, wherever necessary. Prison included, as will be seen in the second part. Conclusions The previous attempts, in 2018, to involve the Department of Prison Administra- tion (DAP) resulted in the refusal of any synergistic collaboration on the train- ing activities that the FAIR project intended to organise for prison personnel. Although already in the planning phase (2017), two penitentiary institutions, in Turin and Forlì, had expressed their interest in being involved in the project, the refusal of the central Penitentiary administration forced us to redefine the tar- get of training actions towards external civilian practitioners, described in the introduction. Although there have been, and still exist, good local practices in Italian pris- ons, some of which have been mentioned above and presented in our training courses, the state of policies of prevention and contrast to violent extremism present a situation where intuition and the good will of the individual actors of the prison administration or civil society are unable to scale from the local to the national level to become a solid Italian strategy. The facilitators involved in the formation of FAIR, have left us the legacy of how the valuable professional, or- ganisational and methodological skills that emerged locally are not valued, as happens for the practice and methodology of dynamic surveillance that remain a theoretical statement, whereas other European countries are producing ex- cellent results in a fruitful collaboration between prison officers and treatment areas. 22 Fighting Against Inmates’ Radicalisation In short, in our judicial system the logic of isolation in high security prisons pre- vails for the already “radicalised” prisoner, the Violent Extremist Offender (VEO), in addition to that of monitoring, with assessment tools, individuals at risk of radicalisation. “De-radicalisation” is rarely considered a treatment; we prefer to raise the potential for deterrence with tools that inflict greater suffering and violation of rights. The volunteers and therapists present at the training in Tu- rin told us, albeit reservedly8, about their positive experiences of collaboration with the prison administration in the cases of “radicalised” prisoners, but the situation of the majority, concentrated in the prisons in Sardinia and Rossano Calabro, is that described by the National Guarantor of the Rights of Persons in Custody or Deprived of their Liberty and what in literature are called “terror- ist effects of the sentence” (O. Rusche, G. Kirchheimer, 1978), which, as Alvise Sbraccia writes in the bi-annual magazine, Antigone (no.1, 2017): «... evidently accentuated by the removal of the inmates from “nor- mal” prison, they could be read as functional in breaking a particu- larly hard and motivated individual, but also to further exacerbate the opposite motivation (R. Romanelli, 2012.8), definitively placing it in the perspective of a violent exchange: terrorism versus terrorism (see J. Githens-Mazer, 2009; S. Poyting, 2016)». Words that take us back to the aforementioned declaration of the Summit at the White House: «Reaffirmed that intelligence gathering, military force, and law enforcement alone will not solve - and when misused can in fact exacerbate - the problem of violent extremism ...», and the practices of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. To ‘exacerbate’, or not, the problem that we have faced passes, therefore, as anticipated and reiterated, along a single road: that of the Rule of law. Taking this road, or not, is a political choice for governments, parliaments, the judiciary and prison administration. A choice that reflects the ideas they have about pris- on and terrorism, with the related paradoxes (D. Berardinelli, L. Guglielminetti, 2018). Finally, on our part, we observed, through the evaluation questionnaires, that those who participated in our training activities appreciated and judged the course and its contents positively, although the latter was given equal time and depth. We are all aware that the knowledge of the phenomenon requires con- tinuous updates with a multidisciplinary approach that shines a spotlight on the many facets and the various factors, including for example that of gender. To date, Europe, despite the risk of having sometimes funded projects with 8 The Chatham House Rule: a conventional rule governing confidentiality in relation to the source of information exchanged during discussions in closed-door meetings. 23 overlapping objectives, has nonetheless guaranteed a wide debate even be- tween academic research and civil society practices, therefore outside the rather closed world of security measures, prison and anti-terrorism. The future choices of both Europe and Italy, though it may seem banal to underline, are in the hands of the citizens and a consequence of their options, and it is precisely to them that we present this paper.9 9 This first part appeared as an article published in “Ristretti Orizzonti” - No- tiziario quotidiano dal carcere, Rassegne Tematiche, Edition of Wednesday 17 April 2019, by Diletta Berardinelli and Luca Guglielminetti, scientific and training coordina- tors of FAIR project. Let us list the people not previously mentioned in the text, but whose contribution was equally relevant for all the training carried out: lawyer and former parliamentar- ian Andrea Maestri; Project manager also for many other UN programmes, Yasmine Refaat; the mediator of the Multi-ethnic Association of Intercultural Mediators (AMMI), Souad Maddahi; general secretary of the Italian Islamic Confederation, imam Mas- simo Abdallah Cozzolino; Attorney of the Republic of Asti, Alberto Perduca; the UN Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI) official, Manuela Brunero; Vice President of the Italian Group Study of Terrorism (GRIST), Francesco Gianfrotta; the coordinator of the Observatory on inmates’ prison conditions, Alessio Scandurra of the Antigone association; Father Jihad Youssef. Special thanks to the President of the Cerchio Blu association, Graziano Lori, to the Professor of the University of Brescia, Carlo Alberto Romano; and the Turin and Piedmonte Guarantors of inamates’rights, Bruno Mellano and Monica Gallo. 24 Fighting Against Inmates’ Radicalisation PART 2: THE WORKSHOP WITH YOUNG INMATES Introduction «In recent years there has been growing attention from both the public and institutions to the process of radicalisation, with respect to which the prison is seen as a catalyst. In the elaboration of the responses aimed at preventing and contrasting the phenomenon, there is the risk of an unjustified erosion of the inmates’ rights. It is important to keep the threshold of attention high with respect to the danger of a progressive transformation of the dynamics that govern penitentiary life in the light of criteria specific to intelligence activities but unrelated to the purposes of the sentence, which must be the reintegration of all the inmates, regardless of the nature of the crime committed or of which one is held accounted for».1 In the partner countries of the FAIR project, from the data collected and the re- sults of the round tables, focus groups and interviews carried out with practitio- ners and experts over the two years, has emerged a low, or sometimes absent, risk of radicalisation, if we limit our range to that of a jihadist origin. The data for Italy published by the Antigone Association read as follows: «As of 31 October 2018, 233 inmates were monitored with the highest level of risk. Of these, 171 were regular prisoners and 62 were restricted in AS2 (high security prison area, A/N)». From the meetings with stakeholders, in addition to the instructions for training activities catering for prison operators and the feasibility study for an alterna- tive detention centre, the request for specific treatment activities for radicalised or at-risk inmates also emerged. Moreover, the same report by Antigone states that, for prisoners in the AS2 circuits: «there is the risk of a lack of activities that occupy the prison day and give meaning to the sentence. In this way we will end up feeding the sense of exclusion and victimisation at the base of the radicalisa- tion process». In the framework of the FAIR project, both a collection of Inspiring Practices and a Programme with different types of workshops to be carried out with inmates for the purpose of preventing and countering violent radicalisation have been 1 Antigone, il carcere secondo la Costituzione, XV rapporto sulle condizioni di detenzione, Radicalizzazione: Numero e strategie di contrasto. Il difficile bilanciamento tra sicurezza e diritti, Roma 2019 25 developed.2 The former were presented during the training activity by first- hand stories of such experiences, whereas the latter programme was discussed and evaluated with the participants in order to adapt it to the specific needs and characteristics of the Italian penitentiary system, and consequently put it in practice, as a pilot activity, in the final phase of the project. These are activities, in most cases, designed to stimulate critical thinking and the positive role of an active citizen in prisoners, enhancing their life experiences and visions of the world, tackled in an open and respectful way, and promoting positive relation- ships and practical skills, oriented to social reintegration. Many practices, included in our paper, aimed at radicalised inmates, or those at risk of radicalisation, are educational-treatment activities useful to almost any prisoner, regardless of the crime committed, in many cases borrowed from initiatives already present before the problem of radicalisation arose in prison systems. Naturally others are targeted schemes, such as the one borrowed from “Channel”, an British programme that uses the figures of mentors in prison for the disengagement activity of jihadist groups. As is the Italian project, “Rights, Duties, Solidarity. A journey between Constitutions and cultures at the Dozza prison in Bologna”, included in the Inspiring Practices collection, it is perhaps the best example of prevention, as reported in the previous part on training in Italy. However, the short time available in the FAIR project would not have al- lowed us to replicate the Bolognese experience, which, in fact, developed in its own right, albeit outside the prison, in another specific European project: “R.E.M. - Rights, Duties, Solidarity“, coordinated by the CEIS Centre in Modena.3 Additionally, in consideration of the difficulties in collaborating with the Direc- torate of the Penitentiary Administration and Training Department of the Italian Ministry, we turned to some individual Juvenile Penitentiary Institutes - those of Turin, Florence and Bologna - presenting them with a proposal that came about during the last session of training in Forlì, where we discussed, with Valeria Col- lina and the course participants, how to enhance the narrative strength of the Mrs. Collina in order to promote her exemplary resilience among the young in- mates. Activities in Turin and Florence We had, in fact, imagined a path that would start from the testimony of the mother of Youssef Zaghba, a young man involved in the London Bridge attack, which took place on June 3, 2017, and author of the book Nel nome di chi. The aim was to stimulate empathy in young prisoners, as well as profound reflec- tion and a moment of confrontation with a maternal figure of great emotional impact who has directly experienced the meaning of resilience in the face of 2 See Collection of inspiring practices (D21) and Prevention and rehabilitation programme (D26) on the project website, http://fair-project.eu/participatory-platform/ 3 See http://www.erasmusrem.eu 26 Fighting Against Inmates’ Radicalisation serious events, and experienced the process of violent radicalisation of her son, which culminated with his tragic death. The result was an intervention programme addressed to the young people of Juvenile Penitentiary Institutes aimed at countering the distortion mechanisms present in their “official narra- tives” that damage their rehabilitation (Hall & Rossmanith, 2016) and to favour a path during which they could address the underlying causes of their behav- iour, facilitating a rewriting of their biographical narrative and the recovery of their deepest identity, essential as their release date and return to society ap- proaches. Two initial sessions followed. The first consisted of a dozen meetings with the selected group of young inmates, during which they were encouraged, with the support of the facilitators, to rework their own personal story. In order to facilitate the task, in light of their lack of education, they were asked to create a collage, using photographic images (cut out from magazines), sentences or words that somehow represented their identity, affections, values and their personal reflections with respect to their past, present and future experiences. Where was possible, the form of expression chosen by the young people was written in poetic form or recited as a piece of rap music. The third session included the presentation of the work produced by the young inmates to a group of peers belonging to civil society with the aim of consoli- dating the “new” narrative through an enriching exercise with others, in a con- text of social recognition, exchange of perspectives and sharing of experiences and mutual listening, without judgments and prejudices. This workshop was inaugurated by the boys of the IPM (Juvenile Detention Centre) in Turin: not only because they were the first to do it between April and May 2019, but also because they gave it a name: “Rewriting my story”. In the case of Turin, moreover, it was possible to carry out an independent monitoring and evaluation of the results of the workshop, conducted by two volunteers from an association external to the project - La Brezza (The Breeze)4 - with ex- tensive experience in the Turin institutes. The monitoring took place through bi-monthly meetings between evaluators and facilitators during which impres- sions, opinions and suggestions on specific methodological aspects and pos- sible contents to be analyzed were shared. The final evaluation was conducted on the basis of the information gathered during the monitoring and distribution of the questionnaires prepared for all FAIR project partners and adapted to the Italian implementation context. While in Bologna it was not possible to carry out the project due to “security reasons”, it took place in Florence in July 2019, without any evaluation being 4 Our thanks to Sofia Conterno and Alice Rena, who contributed greatly to this second part. See the website for further information on “La Brezza”: http://voltoweb. it/labrezza/ 27 possible. In all the initial sessions with Valeria Collina, it was agreed to involve all the in- mates present in the two institutions who wanted to attend, for a total of 25 youths. The following sessions were attended by a total of a dozen young peo- ple, of different cultural origins, of whom only 6 came to the final session, this was due to various reasons: from health problems, to transferral to other struc- tures or to probation. Result assessments From the questionnaires submitted to the young adults of the Turin institute it emerged that • Their motivation for joining and participating in the project was mainly attributed to the desire to listen to the stories of others and to share their own stories without judgment. • The quality of the project and its activities have been recognised and appreciated by the youth, who are agreed on the preparation of the facilitators in carrying out their functions during the project activities. • The sense of closeness to the intervention carried out was also recog- nized by all participants, motivated by the fact that they could freely discuss problems with their families and that they have been given the opportunity to talk about their desires for the future and their desire for change. They also all perceived a sense of freedom to share their thoughts during activities. • In expressing their unanimous satisfaction with the intervention under- taken, the youth stressed the importance of this project in teaching them that “everyone has something to say to others”, appreciating also the “new” and “different” contribution made by the facilitators. One young inmate stated that this project should be offered to children before the risk of entering prison (in schools, communities, etc.) as it would help pre- vent certain mistakes. The facilitators predominantly agreed on the consistency of the project objec- tives with the needs of the detained youths. Even in the absence of specific ref- erence data on the observation conducted among young people on the factors of vulnerability to radicalisation or violent extremism, we knew that the phe- nomenon at the level of Italian juvenile institutions was absolutely marginal. However, for the future development of the activity, we are limited by not being able to ascertain whether the goals of the project, in terms of prevention of radi- calisation, actually responded to the vulnerabilities of the youths. Nevertheless, since the goal of the intervention was to support young inmates in building 28 Fighting Against Inmates’ Radicalisation resilience and self-narration, the intervention was relevant and in line with the educational goals and treatments in the answers of the internal facilitators: the teacher and educator present during all the sessions. There was a discrepancy between facilitators’ thoughts on the connection be- tween the contents of the intervention and the youth’s daily experiences/lives. A facilitator perceived the lack of connection between the desired outcomes of the intervention that allowed youth to think on their goals upon release from prison as opposed to the practical actions that can be implemented already within the prison. The need to provide for a sort of “commitment” towards short-term objectives, therefore not only oriented towards the outside, but also towards life inside the prison, in such a way as to allow an effective verifica- tion, has been noted. These objectives should cover different aspects of young people’s daily lives, including relational, family and working life. The added value of the project, recognized by the facilitators, was to have of- fered youth the opportunity to rework personal experiences even very strong, in an atmosphere of active listening, participation and sharing, without expec- tations allowing youth to feel at ease. All the individuals interviewed underlined the time factor: longer times in the second session of meetings would have al- lowed for greater reflection, also addressing other aspects. For example with the introduction of skills on anger and conflict management. Despite the difficulty for external facilitators to express an opinion on the change of the young people, who they knew only during the project, positive variations were found in their attitude, in terms of self-reflection and emotional communication. The internal facilitators confirmed that following the meetings, the young people lowered their defences and their participation became more sincere. There was an attitude of greater openness towards others, manifested through the desire to talk about oneself, respect for the ideas of others and the ability to accept confrontation. Despite unexpected moments of particular at- traction or repulsion towards the proposed activities (for reasons that are some- times internal, and other times external), active participation always prevailed. During the meetings, when the young people had the opportunity to reflect, tell their stories, define themselves, their goals and their dreams, progressive trust towards the facilitators and subsequently towards their peers was observed. In the third session, in fact, on the day of the presentation of the “autobiographi- cal posters” to their “external” students, the young inmates were enthusiastic. They shared their thoughts on the mistakes made and on the desire to achieve their goals, without feeling ashamed for their past. During the break, the two groups of young people interacted for a long time with each other, without any mediation by adults. The inmates managed to satisfy the need to be considered equal by others: namely, their peers. From these two experiences we have also learned how to improve the work- 29 shop in other ways, the following three in particular: • The ‘mixed’ composition of the facilitator team. We had better feedback in Turin where the staff was a mixture of FAIR project staff and the Institute’s staff, as opposed to the Florence experience, where the FAIR facilitators found themselves working only partially with internal facilitators of the rap workshop. The initiative is more effective when there is the combination of external op- erators, who do not know the young people, and internal operators who know them well. This allows, on the sidelines of the meetings, an exchange of visions that is very useful for monitoring the progress of the activity and immediately introducing any necessary improvements.5 • Identifying a quiet and protected space, appropriate for the perfor- mance of the activities. In this sense, the room we had in Florence was very appropriate, whereas in Turin the continuous interruptions distracted both the facilitators and the participants. • “Case by case” assessment of the selection of participants in the activi- ties. If in the target group of the participants there are people assessed at the risk of radicalisation, it is clear that the whole team of facilitators should be in- formed. In the case of individuals with serious problems or psychological dis- orders, a careful preventive evaluation by psychologists is necessary. Further- more, the activity requires particular adaptation in the presence of individuals with lengthy sentences, in a context in which prison time is on average short for the rest of the group. Finally, in interviews with institutional stakeholders, the Director of the I.P.M. of Turin expressed the desire to be able to extend this project to all the young people of the “Ferrante Aporti”, not so much for the aspect of radicalisation as for the opportunity and the methods of exchange and listening. Also the Coordinator of the Pedagogical Area at the I.P.M. of Florence, after the final session, expressed his appreciation for the activity in relation to the fact that the staff of the educational area absolutely needs to know who these young people actually are, and the various workshops, like ours, are the posi- tive response to prison administration policies that risk a reduction in the treat- ment activities in the Italian prison system. 5 The FAIR facilitators were: Yasmine Refaat and Luca Guglielminetti in the Turin Institute; Yasmine Refaat and Lavinia Rutigliano in the Florence one. Let us list the people who facilitated the two workshops. In Turin: Tatiana Sartor, Picco Gabriella, Giovanni Lapi, Mara Lorenzo, Anna Maria De Sanctis. In Florence: “Cerchio Blu” Association, Angelo Tomasi (C.A.T. Social Cooperative) and Paolo Pecchioli. 30 Fighting Against Inmates’ Radicalisation Conclusions When we read in the policy document of the European Commission’s Radicali- sation Awareness Network that «Providing the offender with hope and a future is necessary in any case, while boredom and sense of limited perspective can be counterproductive»6 , it is very clear that the concept applies to every inmate. The reference is identical to the words of the Antigone report: the absence of treatment «would fuel the sense of exclusion and victimisation at the base of the radicalisation process». Regardless of the crime committed and the vulnerabil- ity to radicalisation, in prison it is a question of filling empty time and providing the tools for re-socialisation for the return to freedom. From this point of view, our autobiographical narrative workshop «has helped to make sense of past mistakes, looking towards the future and leaving no room for feelings of shame with respect to one’s detention. This aspect is fundamental in the process of re- habilitation of inmates as well as in the prevention of recidivism», as stated in the evaluation report on the impact of FAIR activity in Turin. An approach similar to that which (Harkins, Pritchard et al. 2011) considers criminal behaviour as a script learned from society, in the face of which, in line with the Social Learning Theory (SLT), one can be answer through theatre, a “new” social script that “rewrites” one’s biography facilitating “re-learning”. The boy who, in the final session in front of the two groups of peers, presents his poster explaining the choices of the photographs and the chosen words, creates a small “new theatrical staging” of autobiographical rewriting. The key to success, albeit partial - within the limits presented above and in the impos- sibility of measuring their impact in medium-long term - lies in a flexible meth- odology that meets and supports the expressed and communicative abilities of young people. If the poster is suitable for everyone, including those with lower literacy, it is crucial to be able to count on workshops, minimal equipment and internal staff, which, by collaborating with external experts, allow other forms of expression, such as the “rap” workshop in Florence. It is about investing in human and financial resources and the hint of alarm from the Pedagogical Coordinator at the I.P.M. in Florence on the future educational- treatment policies of the penitentiary administration at local and national levels, also recalls the beginning of the Antigone report. The primary importance of including reintegration in the purpose of the sentence, regardless of the nature of the crime committed, which clashes with that worrying panorama of short- comings and violations that emerges from the periodic reports by the National Guarantor of persons held or deprived of personal freedom, presented during 6 RAN EX POST PAPER, The challenge of resocialisation: Dealing with radi- calised individuals during and after imprisonment, written by Till Baaken (research fellow at the Violence Prevention Network), Judy Korn (Founder and CEO of Violence Prevention Network and Co-Chair WG EXIT of RAN), and Dennis Walkenhorst (Scien- tific Director of Violence Prevention Network). 3 the training activity of the FAIR project. As occurred during the training course, also in this case the Rule of law is the beacon of orientation to obtain effective results, starting from the art. 1 of the Penitentiary Regulations which states: «With regard to the convicted and the in- mates, a re-educational treatment must be implemented which is oriented, also via contacts with the external environment, towards their social reintegration». This concept was also taken up by the Dambruoso-Manciulli bill7 which, in the most recent legislature, tried to provide Italy with a structure to prevent radicali- sation phenomena, stating in Article 9: «The Minister of Justice (...) adopts a National plan to guarantee to the detained persons referred to in article 1 of the present law, peni- tentiary treatment which, pursuant to articles 1 and 13 of the law no. 354 of 26 July 1975, tends towards their re-education and de-radi- calisation, in line with the national strategic plan referred to in article 1-bis.». The experience of the FAIR project in the two juvenile penitentiaries, which due to decisions made by central Penitentiary administration, did not include interaction with radicalised prisoners, demonstrates that the possibility of in- tervening on prisoners is instead possible at the local level. This is feasible, as experiences previous to ours have shown, where there are directors and offi- cials that we can define as “attentive”, “sensitive”, “enlightened” towards the educational-treatment proposals and who support projects that very often arise on impulse outside of civil society organisations. A recent book by Pietro Buffa (2019), former director in many prisons and now manager of the Department of Prison Administration, offers a wide range of emblematic examples of the contradictions inherent in the Italian prison sys- tem, where the positive outcomes of a single local initiative disappear when the director of the institute changes. Where good practices seem to be only and always “pilot actions”, without ever being able to reach the level of practice recognised at national standard. Thus, we can conclude that, in the context of the inmate’s right to treatment, we found a condition not unlike that illustrated to us during the training promoted by the FAIR project in relation to the right to religious practice for inmates of Islamic faith. The application or non-application of fundamental rights depends on who occupies a position: an inequality that in all likelihood, amounts to a shameful violation of the Rule of law. 7 Bill A.C. 3558-A containing “Measures for the prevention of jihadi radicalisa- tion and extremism” signed by Hon. Stefano Dambruoso, and presented to the Cham- ber of Deputies on 26th January 2016. 32 Fighting Against Inmates’ Radicalisation PART 3: FEASIBILITY STUDY Introduction Founded in Ravenna as an after-school activity at the end of the 1960s by Don Ulisse Frascali, the Nuovo Villaggio del Fanciullo Foundation is a therapeutic/ rehabilitation residential centre, whose various facilities are aimed particularly at youths suffering from substance abuse and other pathological addictions, also offering inmates an alternative to prison, and to unaccompanied foreign minors, illegally entering the Italian territory. The activity of the Foundation, which is a non-profit organisation, is therefore aimed at providing assistance, at training and educating people affected by drug addiction and alcoholism, minor immigrants and marginalised individuals in general, with the aim of promoting human rights. The activity is structured in a therapeutic and pedagogical perspective the purpose of which is to em- power, rehabilitate and socially reintegrate the marginalised youths, welcom- ing them into the residential facilities, provided it is based on technical and practical training, taking care of their physical, moral and mental rehabilitation, through the practice of appropriate therapies. These activities take place in a national legal framework that facilitates alterna- tive measures to detention in prison, special measures for substance addiction, favouring agreements between civil society non-profit organisations and local social-health services in collaboration with the UEPE (Local Office for Proba- tion Service), USSM (Local Office of Social Service for Minors) and Supervisory Courts (Tribunale di Sorveglianza). The drive behind legislation in this sector came into force in Italy during the 1980s in the face of two emergencies: the growth of substance abuse among young people and emergence from the so-called “Years of Lead”, with thou- sands of ex-militants detained for terrorism offences. The first was addressed by the Law 309 of 1990. Among the rulings of this Law the person found in possession of illegal substances, who can prove that it was for personal use only, may request the suspension of the judicial procedure and consent to follow a rehabilitation programme in the Public Drug Treatment Service (Ser.T.). Subsequently many Regions, within the limits of their organi- sational and assistance competences, issued regulations and allowed agree- ments between Ser.T. and their local health and social services (USL) to imple- 33 ment these programmes in communities managed by non-profit associations and voluntary organisations. The second, known as the Gozzini law, approved by the Parliament in 1986, al- lows inmates, including “dissociated” terrorists, after a certain number of years to avail of work and “holiday permits”, as well as a “day-release” regime.1 Anna Cento Bull and Philip E. Cooke (2013) have highlighted very well the rel- evance of the evolution of the legislative framework towards terrorism in those years: «Much attention has therefore been paid to the response of the Ital- ian state in the early 1980s, when it laid the ground for imprisoned terrorists to openly and officially renounce violence and declare an end to the ‘armed struggle’, in so doing taking advantage of an inno- vative programme for early release, and social re- integration. There is a general consensus, therefore, that terrorism declined in the first half of the 1980s when the state managed to respond to it with both decisive surveillance and military actions and legislation offering material inducements in the form of early release from prison in ex- change for collaboration on the part of individual terrorists. Two suc- cessive laws, passed in 1980 and 1982 (the latter known as ‘repen- tance law’), established that those terrorists who collaborated with the magistrates in their investigations and identified one or more accomplices would have their sentences substantially reduced. The 1982 law also envisaged reductions in sentences for those terrorists who confessed their own crimes but did not collaborate with investi- gations. In 1987 a new law (known as ‘dissociation law’) established that more lenient sentences would also be applied to those former terrorists who genuinely dissociated from political violence, even though they did not reveal anything about their own or their accom- plices’ deeds». So,«The Italian legislation of the 1980s, (...), is generally hailed as an example of good practice that other countries ought to take into account in their own anti- terrorist strategies (Crenshaw 1991; della Porta 1992, 2009; Jamieson 1989; Stortoni-Wortmann 2000; Weinberg and Eubank 1987)». The relevance of these policies lies in the fact that this legal framework has greatly facilitated a process of disengagement, what we now also call de-radicalisation, or “exit” from vio- lent extremism groups. 1 It is no coincidence that many therapeutic communities were set up in these years. In fact, many prisoners, having served their sentences, asked to stay and work, and in many cases even to sleep, in the companies that had welcomed them, high- lighting over time many problems linked to substance addiction. Thus it was that several companies decided to transform their agricultural activity into therapeutic communities for the recovery of young people with substance addiction problems. 34 Fighting Against Inmates’ Radicalisation Still today, we know only through the media of the failures of de-radicalisation programmes promoted in France2, as we equally know too little about the me- dium-term impact of the two Italian programmes launched at the initiative of the Court of Bari and the juvenile Court of Trieste, despite the publications of the those responsible for the initiatives: Professor Laura Sabrina Martucci (2018) and psychologist, Cristina Caparesi (2018). A recent article in “The Guardian” dated 5th April 2019,3 informs us of what happened in the United Kingdom and had been kept confidential until then. In the framework of the “Prevent” counter-terrorism strategy, 116 convicted or suspected terrorists were involved in the Desistance and Disengagement Pro- grammes (DDP), released on probation between October 2016 and September 2018.The programme concerns returnees from conflict areas in Syria and Iraq, the so-called “foreign terrorist fighters returnees”, which are subject to a tem- porary exclusion order that makes their repatriation to the UK illegal without their commitment to the accession authorities to that programme. The latter proposes to «provide a range of intensive, tailored interventions and practical support, designed to tackle the drivers of radicalisation around universal needs for identity, self-esteem, meaning and purpose; as well as to address personal grievances that the extremist narrative has exacerbated». The article then re- ports the statements of Rajan Basra, researcher at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) at King’s College, London: «Little information exists in the public domain on the DDP, but the general aim is to offer a more holistic approach to disengagement. It recognises that disengagement from extremism isn’t just about ideology, and so the programme offers mentoring, family support, and other personal help alongside the theological input. Even then, there’s no set formula for disengagement from extremism; it’s usually a gradual process, and given the varied challenges – which range from returnees from Syria to the homegrown radicalisation of jihad- ists as well as an emergent far-right – it requires resources, time, and patience». Also in this case the Home Office has not released information on how success- ful the DDP has been, but it is important to remember that, in general, these are still relatively new programmes and it takes time to understand whether , how and what works. In this sense, as with any educational-treatment measure, it would be necessary to monitor their impact within an appropriate timeframe. 2 See the following articles as examples: http://www.lastampa.it/2017/09/02/ esteri/what-we-can-learn-from-frances-failed-deradicalization-center-s126MYkCYw32- 9OcwUd1UcJ/pagina.html and https://www.france24.com/en/20170801-france-jihad- deradicalisation-centre-closes-policy 3 See https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/apr/05/extremists-living-in- uk-under-secretive-counter-terror-programme 35 The English experience somehow recalls the Italian experience of the 1980s. Is the commitment required of former jihadists in the English programme - to fol- low a de-radicalisation programme and Counter Violent Extremism (CVE) within alternative measures to prison - a very different approach from the commitment required of former militants of left-wing terrorism - to abandon the practice of the violence, to dissociate, in exchange for reduction of sanction and alterna- tive measures to prison? The “Vidino Report” (2017) reminds us that: «A second, important guiding principle is that of “safeguarding”. The CVE activities undoubtedly have the fundamental purpose of protecting the safety of the community. But they simultaneously pursue the objective of safeguarding potentially radicalisable or al- ready radicalised subjects. In essence, the goal is to defuse individ- ual processes that lead to violent extremism, not only because this increases collective security, but also because these processes are dangerous, primarily, for the very person who endures them. Radi- calisation is therefore seen in a way not unlike other problems that can afflict vulnerable young people, such as the threat of pedophilia or substance addiction. While absolutely not excluding the possibili- ty of intervening with traditional repressive methods, if the necessary threshold is exceeded, with the CVE approach, the young person is also considered as a subject to be safeguarded». A report from The International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, published in 2010 (ICSR 2010)4 argues that government programmes and policies aimed at facilitating collective and/or individual disengagement can have a wider im- pact on terrorist campaigns, helping to put an end to them, but only «as long as the political momentum is no longer with the insurgents and other external conditions are conducive»(p. 60). Indeed the military decline of ISIS, which be- gins in 2016, just as the fall of the Italian Red Brigade following the investigative activity of General Dalla Chiesa with the help of the informants that leads to the arrest of Mario Moretti in 1981, they are two temporal phases that create “con- ducive conditions”, evaluating even the simple fact of creating disillusionment and discouragement among the militants of the organisations, so that they would consider their disengagement. In such “conducive conditions”, a phase opens up for the countries during which they can grant a certain level of politi- cal recognition to violent militants (the recognition that in the training activity of the FAIR project we have identified as a common goal for all terrorism and insurrections armed against the State), in exchange for their disengagement from the group and from violence. 4 Available at https://icsr.info/2010/08/19/prisons-and-terrorism-radicalisation- and-de-radicalisation-in-15-countries/ 36 Fighting Against Inmates’ Radicalisation Also in the United Kingdom, within the framework of the Prevent counter-ter- rorism strategy, there is a programme addressed to another category of indi- viduals: the inmates reported as vulnerable or at risk of radicalisation by the monitoring and observation activity of the prison personnel. This is the Channel programme, and one of its operators was involved in the FAIR project training day in Brescia, dedicated to the imams of UCOII (Union of Italian Islamic Com- munities and Organisations). The DDL methodology based on “mentoring, fam- ily support and other personal help” has most likely been borrowed from this precedent. The methods and purposes of such a monitoring activity for assessing the risk of radicalisation in prisoners are the object of analysis and discussion at Euro- pean level. In each country the prison administrations have developed tools, the Violent Extremism Risk Assessment Tools, a list of parameters to be observed to define the level of vulnerability to radicalisation. Without going into the reliability and the scientific rigor of these tools, consid- ered questionable by the research world in a framework in which the actual phenomenon of radicalisation (and terrorism) is the subject of different schools of interpretation, the FAIR Project has also developed a document on indicators of the risk of radicalisation in prison,5 just as other European projects managed by the Ministry of Justice have focused on this issue.6 For the past ten years, the latter has included the problem of radicalisation in the context of the activity of scientific observation of the prisoners’ personality envisaged by the Italian penitentiary system. An activity carried out by GOT (Observation and Treatment Group) and which, with the Circular 3593/6043 of October 9th 2003, is con- figured as a multidisciplinary group that includes prison directors, psycholo- gists, educators, social workers, prison officers, teachers, ministers of worship and volunteers. However, it must be emphasised that since the introduction of radicalisation risk monitoring tools, followed by specific training courses on Islam and radicalisation for prison staff, it does not appear that religious figures and volunteers have been involved. Precisely the two target groups of the FAIR training courses (in addition to the third group made up of Guarantors of the Prisoner’s Rights). The reason for this exclusion is quite understandable if we evaluate the purpose and the process of this specific monitoring. In fact, while following the activity of scientific observation on ‘normal’ inmates, ad hoc treatment programmes are adopted for work/educational/training/sports and recreational activities and to strengthen family ties; in the case of observation on radicalisation risks, the pro- cedure follows the channel provided for general information to the Central In- 5 See the documents Risk Indicators of Radicalisation in Prisons (D22) on the project website, http://fair-project.eu/participatory-platform/ 6 “Raising Awareness and Staff Mobility on Violent Radicalisation in Prison and Probation Services” (RASMORAD P&P) and “Train Training”. 37 vestigative Unit (NIC) of the Penitentiary Police: intelligence is a priority. Person- nel outside the administration, such as ministers of worship and volunteers, are either excluded, or very rarely involved. The eventual educational-treatment ac- tivity for prisoners at risk of radicalisation remains in the rather arbitrary area of the individual local administrations of penitentiary institutions, as we reported in the previous part on FAIR’s workshop experience. Although the problem of extremists in prison, both convicted and on trial, as well as prisoners at risk of violent radicalisation, varies in numbers throughout European countries and has restricted numbers in those of the FAIR project partnership, the fact remains that those who have engaged in terrorist activi- ties, or are likely to do so as a result of radicalisation in prison, will eventually be released. In anticipation of reintegration into society, we must ask ourselves which are the most effective ways to manage the risks they present: which les- sons to draw from the Italian past and from the countries that are best facing the challenge; which strategies and practices to follow in both inside and outside prison. The questions surrounding this challenge were the subject of the feasibility study that the FAIR project conducted in Italy. General aims The most recent activity carried out by the FAIR project was a feasibility study for an alternative to prison Centre aimed at the detention, rehabilitation and reintegration of radicalised inmates or those at risk. The aim of the study is to have a greater understanding of the current legal frameworks and political and institutional mechanisms that allow the use of alternative measures to prison, allowing prisoners to serve their sentences, or part of them, in Non-profit sec- tor structures specialised in providing disengagement or de-radicalisation pro- grammes, and to favour their reintegration into society. Since the alternatives to detention depend on the national legal framework, in particular on the laws and penitentiary policies, in the partner countries of the FAIR project the points of view were collected, through interviews and focus- groups, of different stakeholders, including: magistrates, prison administration and probation services officials, law and criminology professors, guarantors of inmates’ rights, civil society organisations and political decision makers. The multiple aims of the study were to: • Explore the legal frameworks and actors involved in the imple- mentation of prison sentences, for those who have been convicted of crimes related to terrorism and who have been evaluated, by monitoring in prison, as vulnerable to violent radicalisation; • Identify the expectations and the main gaps perceived by local 38 Fighting Against Inmates’ Radicalisation actors in defining concrete objectives and actions to be undertaken: a) in train- ing and awareness of the problem of radicalisation; b) in the development and implementation of alternative measures to detention in prison; c) in the assess- ment tools used to monitor the risk of extremism or violent radicalism; d) in local and national policies for preventing and countering radicalisation and violent extremism; • Evaluate the legal, political, procedural, operational require- ments for the design and implementation of one or more alternative centres to detention in prison and the appropriate prevention and contrast programmes to promote disengagement, or de-radicalisation; • Explore and implement the role of civil society actors, local au- thorities and services in the implementation of actions and programmes for the prevention and counter of violent extremism, in a multidisciplinary and multi- agency approach. The feasibility study addressed 3 target groups: a) VEOs (Violent Extremist Of- fenders), in other words, “radicalised” inmates, either sentenced or suspected for crimes related to terrorism; b) inmates convicted of other crimes not related to violent extremism or terrorism, but identified by the prison authorities to be at risk of radicalisation; and c) the so-called “returned foreign fighters”, who according to the UN Security Council Resolution 2178 are «... nationals who travel or attempt to travel to a State other than their States of residence or nation- ality, and other individuals who travel or attempt to travel from their territories to a State other than their States of residence or nationality, for the purpose of the perpetration, planning, or preparation of, or participation in, terrorist acts, or the providing or receiving of terrorist training, including in connection with armed conflict».7 Results in Italy A. The stakeholders The activity carried out in Italy, between June and July 2019, through 3 focus groups and 12 interviews, involved the following stakeholders: Perla Allegri, re- searcher of the European Prison Observatory project promoted by the Antigone association; Claudio Bertolotti, Director of START InSight; Monica Gallo, citisen Guarantor of prisoners’ rights in Turin; Stefano Dambruoso, Magistrate of the Prosecutor’s Office of Bologna and former member of Parliament; Gianmarco Fistarol, Board of the Regional Volunteer Justice Conference in Piedmont; Emilio Gatti, Magistrate of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Turin; Yassine Lafram, President of UCOII, Union of the Islamic Community of Italy; Bruno Mel- lano, Regional Guarantor for prisoners’ rights in Piedmont; Davide Mosso, Layer member of the National Prisons Observatory promoted by the Union of Criminal Chambers; Alessia Natale, Director of the Office III Inspection of the external pe- 7 United Nations - Security Council, S/RES/2178 (2014) 39 nal area and juvenile justice of the Ministry of Justice; Alberto Pagani, Member of the Defence Commission at the Parliament; Carlo Alberto Romano, profes- sor of Criminology at the University of Brescia; Laura Scomparin, Professor of Penitentiary Law at the University of Turin; Elena Sonnino of the Benvenuti in Italia Foundation; Giovanni Torrente, Professor of Sociology, University of Turin; Angelo Zappalà, Professor of criminology at the Salesian University of Turin; Francesca Valenzi, Manager of the Prisoners’ Office at the Regional Board of Penitentiary Administration (PRAP) in Piedmont, Andrea Maestri, Layer and for- mer member of Parliament. B. The target groups and the legal framework The legal framework that emerged from the interviews and focus groups made it possible to identify the following target groups of offenders who could have access to alternative measures to prison in an experimental external Centre, specialised in preventing and countering radicalisation and violent extremism in the case of: 1. “Radicalised” inmates, in other words, inmates sentenced for crimes re- lated to terrorism - those present in the Italian Penal Code in the second book, title I “Offenses against the personality of the State”, art. 270 and following - have limited opportunities to access alternative measures to detention provided for by Chapter VI of the Penitentiary Regulations. These are the precise cases defined in art. 4 bis of the same penitentiary system: including «only in cases where such prisoners and inmates collaborate with justice», «provided that ele- ments have been acquired that exclude current links with organised, terrorist or subversive crime», and from what is also specified in the various paragraphs that compose it. 2. Individuals, not punishable or imputable, socially dangerous subject to safety and prevention measures. On one hand, in consideration of the fact that it is the judge, where provided, who assesses whether the social dangerous- ness of the offender exists, and he/she will assess the social dangerousness by adhering to Article 133 of the Penal Code, considering the seriousness of the crime committed and the criminal offense of the offender, some stakehold- ers have hypothesised the possibility for the latter to access “probation” (li- bertà vigilata, art. 228 of the Criminal Code) even for some cases of radicalised subjects, such as - for example - when it is proven thay they are partially mental- ly incompetent (art. 85 Criminal Code). On the other hand, in the framework of the “Special public security surveillance” measures, also defined as prevention measures, which is applied by the ordinary criminal court, on the proposal of the competent judicial and police authorities, to persons for whom, despite not being convicted of any offence, their social dangerousness linked to terrorism exists: «to those who, operating in groups or in isolation, carry out preparatory, 40 Fighting Against Inmates’ Radicalisation objectively relevant, acts aimed at subverting the system of the State» (Article 4, letter d , Legislative Decree 159/11). To these subjects the Court can apply per- sonal security measures that include a path of de-radicalisation, as in the case of the decree n. 71/17 of the Court of Bari (Martucci, De Stavola, 2018). 3. Recently, for suspects sentenced up to four years, “the suspension of the trial with probation (messa alla prova)” was introduced (law 28/04/2014, No. 67 entered into force on 17/05/2014). This is an alternative way of defining the process, which can be activated from the phase of preliminary investiga- tions, through which it is possible to reach a decision of acquittal for extinction of the crime, where the probationary period consented to the accused/person under investigation by the judge in the presence of certain regulatory require- ments, has a positive outcome. To this extent, already present since 1988 in the Code of juvenile criminal trial (art. 28 DPR 448/88), it is also therefore possible to file an appeal for individuals with “minor” crimes related to terrorism and forms of extremism, such as propaganda and the instigation to commit crimes on grounds of ethnic and religious racial discrimination (art. 604 bis Criminal Code); or as occurred in the case of the Juvenile Court of Trieste which commis- sioned the local Office of Social Service for Minors (USSM) to draw up a de-radi- calisation project against a minor investigated for proselytizing and supporting ISIS (Article 414, last paragraph, of the Criminal Code), for the carrying out of the probation, from the phase of preliminary investigations (Caparesi, Tambo- rini, 2018). 4. Inmates sentenced for crimes not related to terrorism, or to other crimes and impediments provided for by art. 4 bis of the Penitentiary Ordinance, but which are at risk of violent radicalisation (low, medium, high) from the moni- toring activity carried out in prison by the Observation and Treatment Group (GOT). However, this target is limited to Italian and European citizens: if the in- mate is a non-EU foreigner leaving prison, he/she would follow an almost cer- tain administrative expulsion from the national territory for reasons of public order or state security. That is, they would follow the intervention of the legal instrument (art. 3, c. 1, l. 155/2005) which has been increasingly used in recent years by the Ministry of the Interior for “terrorist prevention reasons”, against foreigners although not directly involved in terrorist activities (or in cases where such involvement was difficult to prove in a court of law). 5. The definition of the legal framework concerning returned foreign fight- ers - according to data relating to 2016, only 6 were present on the national territory - is also burdened by the problem of their citizenship. The same num- ber (110) of fighters who left for the Syrian-Iraqi scenario is characterised as “connected with Italy”, “(a broad category that also includes subjects whose ties are rather superficial)”(Vidino,2017). The problem of citizenship, that is, the fact that the majority of these are foreigners with only residence permits, also affects the possibility of intervention on their wives and children, still in prison 4 camps in Syria and Iraq. The returned foreign fighters, or those who would like to return, including wives and children, even if they succeeded in entering Italy, they would risk being immediately deported also on the grounds that, pursuant to the recent legislative decree n. 113 of 2018, their possible Italian citizenship can be revoked. Many stakeholders have rightly focused on the impediment of Article 4 bis of the penitentiary system for access to alternative extramural measures, burdened by the fact that inmates for offences related to terrorism are often imprisoned in High Security prison area (AS2), such as those in Sassari and Rossano Calabro. The years of dissociation from the armed struggle and access to relative bene- fits seem very distant. Without a reform of Art. 4 bis o.p., some stakeholders that we met affirm that this target of prisoners can be reached by disengagement and de-radicalisation programmes only in the intramural treatment framework. Or if there are legal and political assessments that exclude, for example, «cur- rent links with organised, terrorist or subversive crime». A choice that could take place in consideration of the “conducive conditions”, seen in the introduction, as was the case with the returned foreign fighters of the British DDP; that is, if the defeat of ISIS on the military level was considered an important fact and if the risk assessment tools used by the GOT (Observation and Treatment Group) also measured disengagement, “self-deradicalisation”, which could occur from discomfort and disillusionment of military defeat. Those subjected to “safety and prevention measures” and those who have access to “the suspension of the trial with probation (Messa alla prova)”, are those on whose vulnerability to radicalisation it is possible to intervene with de-radicalisation activities, as occurred in the two Italian cases of Bari and Tri- este. These are measures that do not have a custodial nature (“non-custodial measures”), administered by the judicial authority, in the first case by proxy or public security input, in the second by the defence lawyer, and whose execu- tive mechanism is agreed, only in the second case of “the suspension of the trial with probation” (Messa alla prova), with the UEPE (Local Office for Proba- tion Service) or USSM (Local Office of Social Service for Minors). In light of the current legal framework, the only individuals who could take ad- vantage of alternative measures to prison in a residential or semi-residential centre are a sub-group of the fourth target: those with low or medium risk of rad- icalisation, if they have Italian or European citizenship. Presumably very few. The data presented by the Antigone Report (2019) inform us that: «As of 31st October 2018, 233 inmates were being monitored with the highest level of risk. Of these, 171 were regular prisoners and 62 were restricted to AS2, approximately 4% less than the previous year. 103 were monitored with an intermediate level of attention as well as 42 Fighting Against Inmates’ Radicalisation 142 so-called “followers”, in other words, inmates considered frag- ile and consequently easier to be approached by violent ideologies, given the situation of suffering caused by the prison context. A to- tal of 478 were monitored, around 5.5% less than in 2017. Of these, 27.7% came from Tunisia, 26.07% from Morocco, 6% from Egypt and 4.5% from Algeria». The 62 detainees monitored at the highest level in AS2 almost coincide with the «66 defendants or convicted of crimes related to international terrorism of Islamic origin», present in the same security circuit, and therefore fall into the first target group, regardless of their citizenship. The issue of citizenship also concerns returned foreign fighters in Italy, the fifth target group. De-radicalisation interventions are conceivable only if they are Italian citizens and, in this case, they would fall within the first target group, with the relative previous assessments. A limit to report, with regard to the observation of the phenomenon of radicali- sation in prison, is the fact that the tools used to date to assess the risks have been orientated towards a particular form, the Islamist or jihadist one. «It is of fundamental importance, in order to avoid exploitation, to remember that radicalisation can be inspired and guided by any extremist ideology. In the recent past, our country has experienced dramatic years due to the radicalisation phenomena (even if the term was not used at that time) linked to extreme right and extreme left ideologies. And even today in Italy, radicalisation is also attributable to those extremisms, to nationalism and ethnic separatism, as well as animalist extremism and other forms of it». (Vidino, 2017)8 During the Italian historical terrorism of the so-called “Years of Lead”, there were quite a number of petty criminals who became politicised and were recruited in prison in the ranks of terrorist organisations, as was the case of Cesare Battisti, of Armed Proletarians for Communism (PAC), to name only the most famous case. The challenge of identifying Risk Assessment Tools for all matrices of vio- lent extremism remains to be explored, but perhaps it has begun in the trials currently underway in the TRAIN TRAINING project of the Italian ministry. Finally, from the interviewed stakeholders it emerged that the hypothesis of conditional sentences of the feasibility study would clash with the requirement of territorial sentence implementation, since it was the only one for the whole national territory. 8 For other forms of extremism in Italy, see the annual Reports presented to Parliament by Intelligence System for the Security of the Republic. 43 C. The Centre and its aims The legal and numerical limitations of the identified targets did not prevent the stakeholders involved in the FAIR project from reporting expectations and needs, or from exploring innovative paths, which could be transmitted or chan- neled to an experimental Centre dedicated to the prevention and countering of violent radicalisation. The first highlights the need to support educational-treatment activities, espe- cially within the prisons, a right whose application framework presents a very diversified situation throughout the national territory and which deteriorates particularly in the high-security prisons, on which we also had the report of the national Guarantor’s visits during the FAIR project training, described in the first part. The second is that of operator training. Although the prison administration, for at least a decade, has implemented training courses for its internal staff, one of the expectations that emerged from interviews and focus groups is precisely that of involving a wider audience of operators, both internal and external to the administration, in paths that provide the necessary cognitive tools to under- stand a complex phenomenon that requires a multidisciplinary and geopoliti- cal framework of the local, national and international context, and that cannot avoid the theme of similarities and differences of the different forms of terrorism and radicalisation. The third is to identify the methodological approaches and monitoring tools for the selection and evaluation of single projects or local interventions, for individuals or groups, capable of explaining which practices work by making them “better” and necessary. Although the stakeholders did not have the op- portunity to examine in depth the two documents, the Collection of Inspiring Practices and the programmes with the CVE workshops prepared by FAIR,9 the need to acquire in-depth tools on prevention, disengagement and de-radicali- sation emerged, which allow them to be measured in terms of utility and effec- tiveness. The fourth, linked to the previous two, is the need to identify paths to stan- dardise both the training activity and the best practices, towards which, in the case of inmates, a progressive temporary system, legislation permitting, was recommended, starting from rehabilitation in prison, perhaps in areas with at 9 See the documents: Collection of Inspiring practices (D21) and Prevention and rehabilitation programme (D26) on the project website, http://fair-project.eu/par- ticipatory-platform/ 44 Fighting Against Inmates’ Radicalisation tenuated custody, as was the case in experiments related to drug addiction,10 and then gradually continuing in the external community programmes. The fifth is the issue voluntary or obligatory participation in prevention and countering interventions. In the Italian legal framework we have seen that some measures, such as those of prevention, are coercive. On the other hand, in many international P/CVE programmes, the individual’s willingness to participate is a fundamental precondition. From the indications of the stakeholders we can approximately consider as advisable, without taking into account legislative devices, that the de-radicalisation activities towards subjects radicalised from a behavioural point of view (who have acted violently) are mandatory and indi- vidual; whereas those of prevention and de-radicalisation towards vulnerable subjects, or those undergoing radicalisation (cognitive or behavioural), are op- tional and carried out in groups for which no label or stigma is applicable. In conclusion, the features highlighted by the feasibility study, within the frame- work of the current legislation and the indications received from stakeholders, are those of a mixed public-private structure, of a regional or national nature, which addresses some of the aims contained (a) in the Dambruoso-Manciulli bill, (b) in the chapter CVE: general experiences and principles of the “Vidino Report”, integrated (c) with more recent ones that have emerged on national panoramas, in European projects and policies. A mixed public-private structure means starting from the multidisciplinary and multi-agency approach where the third sector civil society, together with the local civil and religious communities and families, and the traditional actors of the anti-terrorist community, together with the prison administration and local health and social services. This approach is possible only if based on the mu- tual trust and transparency of the various actors: «It is possible to obtain the active participation of a multiplicity of public and private actors and to carry out actions aimed not at the criminalisation of the individuals but at their recovery or prevention, only if every action is inspired by the principle of transparency» (Vidino, 2017). A Centre that can offer limited residential or semi-residential facilities for radi- calised or vulnerable individuals, but above all with a mobile team capable of intervening in the various detention centres in the area: prisons, juvenile insti- tutes, detention centres for repatriation, rehabilitation and therapeutic commu- nities. The team should be specialised in the study (analysis and evaluation), practices (individual and in group) and training (of the various operators) of prevention interventions of the various phenomena of violent extremism, on the basis of analysis that leave aside the social perception of the phenomenon, 10 As was the case in the “Lorusso-Cotugno” prison in Turin during the “Arco- baleno” project for substance addiction. See http://www.ristretti.it/areestudio/droghe/ progetti/torino.htm 45 fomented by the media, and enter into the merits of the real risks present at the local root level. Finally, a Centre that aspires to putting into practice and fostering the recom- mendations that follow in the appendix and that represent the lessons learned in the two years of studies and activities during the FAIR project.11 11 Interviews, focus groups and feasibility study analysis were conducted and edited by Yasmine Refaat and Luca Guglielminetti. 46 Fighting Against Inmates’ Radicalisation APPENDIX: RECOMMENDATIONS 1. SYSTEM INTERVENTIONS 1.1. - The conditions of the Italian penitentiary system with its frequent problems of overcrowding in institutions, lack of educational-treatment person- nel, violation of certain rights of inmates are all counterproductive conditions for the rehabilitation of prisoners and which cultivate a fertile environment for radicalisation. Ensure the systematic enforcement of internationally established prisoners’ rights, such as the United Nations “Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners“ (Nelson Mandela Rules), the Italian constitution and the peniten- tiary code is the first precondition to act in terms of prevention of radicalisation and violent extremism. The application of the Rule of law is therefore the fundamental prerequisite for promoting in the prison system the factors of protection and resilience towards the risks of violent radicalisation of inmates. 1.2. - The precarious nature and the pilot aspect of the best projects and re-educational activities active in the individual local penitentiary institutions, which are not sustainable over time and do not grow at national level, with the consequent inequality of treatment conditions, is a problem mirroring the pre- vious one that requires them to be mapped, evaluated, standardised and im- proved in the context of guaranteeing treatment for all inmates aimed at reinte- gration into society. 1.3. - Bridge the gap in the multi-disciplinary and multi-agency approach in the face of radicalised and vulnerable prisoners, fueling the role of civil so- ciety and religious organisations, according to the principle of horizontal sub- sidiarity that has often allowed the private social sector to fill the gaps present in prison systems. Linguistic and cultural mediators or spiritual guides, for ex- ample, have made important contributions to be formalised and which require financial sustainability. 1.4. - Similarly, bridging the gap in the training of operators, with paths that not only include internal and external personnel staff (such as volunteers and spiritual guides), but also other actors responsible for prevention, from the judiciary to the local social-health services, to guarantee a common approach and language at the base of knowledge and practices. 47 1.5. - Reverse the tendency to a certain “autarchy” of the prison adminis- tration in the management of European projects, such as that which prevented collaboration between parallel paths in the cases of FAIR and TRAIN TRAINING. Steering committees must be favoured - either for areas of intervention, or for territorial areas - for European projects in terms of prevention and countering radicalisation and violent extremism, in order to optimise results, avoid overlap- ping actions and the consequent waste of public financial resources. 2. LEGISLATIVE INTERVENTIONS 2.1. - Re-launch in Parliament the discussion of the Dambruoso/Man- ciulli bill extended to all forms of extremism, as emerged from the annual reports to the Parliament by the “Intelligence System for the Security of the Republic” and with greater multidisciplinary/multi-agency integration in the operational centres (CRAD - National Anti-Radicalisation Centre and CCR - Regional Anti- Radicalisation Coordination). 2.2. - Resume the path to reach an understanding between the Italian State and the Islamic communities, in order to create protocols between the lat- ter and the Department of Penitentiary Administration to guarantee the rights to religious practice and to favour the role of spiritual guides in the deconstruction of the values present in the narratives and violent/extremist /fundamentalist in- terpretations of the various religions. 2.3. - Reform Article 4 bis of the Penitentiary System as emerged from the round tables in the Stati Generali dell’esecuzione penale, which, with the intention to «re-orient the current regime impeding the granting of penitentiary benefits and alternative measures to detention according to the Constitution», “, also aims «at transforming the current non-collaboration from ordinary con- clusive presumption to relative presumption, as such can be overcome by ad- equate motivation on the part of the judge, without prejudice to the evidence of the absence of current links of the offender with organised, terrorist or subver- sive crime».1 2.4. - Extend the possibilities of resorting to “probation” (libertà vigilata), “security and prevention” and “the suspension of the trial with probation” (mes- sa alla prova) measures for “minor” crimes related to extremism, subversion and terrorism, favouring de-radicalisation measures following the example of cases in the Court of Bari and Trieste. 2.5. - Extend the margins of defence appeal towards the instrument of 1 Stati Generali dell’esecuzione penale. Round table talks. Table 16 –Treatment, regulatory barriers for the identification of rehabilitation treatment: see, https://www. giustizia.it/resources/cms/documents/sgep_tavolo16_relazione.pdf 48 Fighting Against Inmates’ Radicalisation administrative expulsion (deportation) of the foreigner from the national terri- tory for reasons of public order or state security (Code of administrative process art. 13, co. 11, as modified by art. 3, paragraph 7 of Annex 4 of Legislative De- cree No. 104 dated 2nd July 2010), in light of the international dimension of the terrorism phenomenon, on the one hand, and the reduced capacity to ensure the Rule of law for prisoners and suspects from foreign countries of origin, on the other. 3. POLICY INTERVENTIONS 3.1. - Bring forward the experimental creation of a centre, as provided for in the Dambruoso/Manciulli bill, specialised in prevention policies and prac- tices to counter violent extremism within the framework of the indications in the “Vidino Report”, in the policy papers of the Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) and in the collections of intervention practices for individuals or groups of inmates. 3.2. - Subject to periodic independent review, and update, the Violent Extremism Risk Assessment Tools in the activity of monitoring the inmates, veri- fying compliance with the confidentiality and protection of their personal data, and also introducing parameters that make it possible to assess the possible degree of disengagement from the extremist group and from violence. 3.3. - Ensure the inclusion, in the GOT (Observation and Treatment Groups) of penitentiary institutions, of volunteers and spiritual guides, and oth- er professional figures external to the penitentiary administration considered useful, even when there is a risk of violent radicalisation of the inmates. 3.4. - Verify the medium-long term preventive effectiveness of terrorism of the administrative expulsion (deportation) of foreigners from the national ter- ritory for reasons of public order or State security. 3.5. - Evaluate the legal status, and possible violation of international humanitarian protection rights, of wives and children of foreign-fighters impris- oned in Syrian and Iraqi camps, to reduce also the risk of stateless children born during the conflict. 49 50 Fighting Against Inmates’ Radicalisation AFTERWORD: RESEARCHING RADICALISATION TO MITIGATE EXTREMIST VIOLENT BEHAVIOUR There are different practices and different studies on radicalisation and at- tempts to mitigate violent extremist behaviour. Yet, we have to admit that we did not yet agree on a concrete definition of terrorism and in some cases also of radicalisation as it involves various issues whether coming from the individ- ual, culture, politics and history, which hinders the finding of a common ap- proach that would concretely work in identifying, mitigating and addressing violent behaviour related to radical fanaticism. Identifying and learning from successful practices carried out by different nation states is the way to create an ever-stronger policy culture that aims at mitigating violent extremism from its inception and suppress and repress the potential of such violent behaviour in individuals who are already involved. As a criminologist giving this paper here in the capital of Italy, it is hard for me not to link this topic of extremist ideologies with the work of Cesare Lombroso, as I carried out for my PhD. I am sure that at this moment in time a number of you are looking at me in an awkward way because of Lombroso. Lombroso was al- ways somehow or other linked to measuring and analysing skulls of offenders and for coming up with the theory of the born criminal (il delinquente nato or il reo nato). Although considered the father of criminology, Lombroso was some- how or other discarded by most academics and consequently a good portion of his work was never given the deserved attention. However, I can assure you that the issues that we are facing and discussing here today in relation to radi- calisation, who is being attracted to extremist thought and who finally acts was already being questioned by Lombroso. Back in 1880s the wave of anarchism over different parts of the globe reflected very much the threat we are facing nowadays. As a reaction to this threat in 1895 Lombroso issued a book called Gli Anar- chici. Lombroso issued two editions of this book which is long slightly more than 100 pages, where the second edition included more material and a num- ber of corrections of the first version. Being a polyglot Lombroso managed to collect information on this phenomenon from different countries aiming to identify common trends among the extremist actors of such movements. If you ever go through this work you will notice that Lombroso moved away from the simple looks of the individuals and looked at how these persons were brought up, their character and psychology worked, how religion and local legislations influenced the actions and reactions of this movement and actors. 5 A salient point of this work was when Lombroso compared two characters, Rav- achol and Caserio who were both lured toward the anarchist ideology. Rava- chol was considered a born criminal not only because of physical characteris- tics but also because of his upbringing and the intergenerational transmission of criminal behaviour. On the contrary Caserio was brought up as a law abid- ing person and physically had nothing that could associate him with crime let alone an extreme heinous act of assassination of a French president. Compar- ing these two characters together with a number of other characters, both male and female, led Lombroso to conclude that anyone could be attracted to an ex- treme ideology though there could be particular ages and personal as well as contextual backgrounds that could make a person more susceptible to being influenced and lured to extreme ideologies and express them selves in a violent manner. Also Lombroso stressed that the approach of policing and judicial sys- tems had to changed in order to deal with such phenomenon. In fact Lombroso stressed that police forces should share more information about individuals in- volved in anarchism. Whereas the judiciary should refrain from adopting the capital punishment in such cases even though a high profile individual (depu- taticidio) would have been targeted and in most cases assassinated. Capital punishments were what the extremist individuals envisaged as the gran finale for their act, as they would become martyrs for their cause. On the other hand, Lombroso recommended rehabilitation through asylums so that they would be considered insane. This is reflected in also very recent research. As explained by Sasnal (2016: 7) when discussing radical political ideologies, it entails the focus on extreme changes of part of or all of the social order. Although there are various groups and movements with extremist ideologies around the globe, the one that is made most noise in the last decade and is still making most noise is the islamist that is impersonated by Daesh (ISIS) and previously by Al Qaeda mainly. How- ever, there are various other groups that are out there and most of the time they are ignored as they do not hit the headlines as the mentioned groups. Yet as Rapoport (2002) indicated in his theory on waves of terrorism, through the history of humankind there have been a series of waves of terrorist attacks. Rapoport’s work looks back at the 1880s where one finds the ‘Anarchist Wave’. Subsequent waves of extreme violence were witnessed and documented as follows: the “Anti-Colonial Wave” between 1920s and 1960s, this was followed by the “New Left Wave”; and the fourth is the “Religious Wave” which started in the late 1970s. As a reaction to the latest wave it appears that new upcoming wave tends to follow a “Right Ideology”. No matter what might be the leading ideology, whether religious, extreme right or left one has to appreciate that the plethora of reasons why a person, both male and female, would be attracted to join a local or a global group varies immensely. There is no one single push factor that can be identified and ad- 52 dressed. Push factors can include politics, culture, economy, history or other grounds. Creating a dichotomy of “us vs them” provides fertile grounds for conflicts on various, and diverse issues that always aim at an immediate and drastic shift in politics. Such approach attracts people of any nationality, colour and gender and in recent years the propaganda of such group acquire more momentum with the help of internet and the widely available social media. Evi- dence of this is the hundreds of thousands of fighters that were attracted to the ideology of of Daesh. Fighter lured to join this cause from over 80 countries from around the globe (including countries likes Tunisia, Russia, Turkey, France, UK, Belgium and Germany) (Sasnal, 2016). Different individuals take singular trajectories that one might pursue in being lured to extreme violence (Taylor & Horgan, 2006) and also in moving out of these movement as indicated in Horgan’s work Walking away from terrorism. Focusing specifically on the prison for the past two years the project Fight- ing Against Inmate Radicalisation (in short FAIR) sought the collaboration of 10 partners and aimed at identifying both the push and pull factors towards extremist behaviour among inmates and to create adequate and feasible mea- sures to counter or mitigate it. There is a barrage of literature on radicalisation and related issues that is constantly being issued on national and international scales. Thus, aiming to identify good practices that help the personnel within prisons and also the inmates was no easy task. Faced by hurdles due to different approaches from governments and institu- tions, diverse cultures and often incongruent legislations, FAIR still aimed at increasing the consciousness on radicalisation and ensure that both societies and institutions approach this phenomenon in a multidisciplinary manner. Con- sequently, this project brought together professionals coming from different environments with the unique objective of targeting radicalisation and related extreme violence from various aspects aiming at a practical approach. Primarily FAIR looked at the the phenomenon of radicalisation in prison. The respective countries looked at the potential issues that might push individual to adopt an extremist ideology and eventually act in a violent way. Thus, this project looked at the root causes at the macro, micro and geo-political level. Violence begets violence and this tends to be counterproductive. Thus, FAIR looked at providing the necessary knowledge to professionals to recognise signs of radicalisation and the best practices to deal with it limiting the possibili- ties of extreme violence at its inception and providing ways of disengagement within prisons. The prison environment was chosen for two main reasons. Prisons, like other similar institutions and meeting places are considered primary environments where radicalisation takes place since individuals with fanatic ideologies tend to spread their knowledge to other groups and might also pinpoint potential 53 recruits. Secondly the prison environment has been considered as the place where rehabilitation should take place. Prisons can be safe environments where inmates can discuss ideas and with the help of appositely identified profession- als, the phenomenon of radicalisation is counter-narrated through reflections on universally accepted values, education, universal rights and respect for oth- ers and their cultures and religions. However, FAIR experience that retributive judicial systems are not all prepared to adopt the rehabilitation approach. Judicial systems and prisons that tend to isolate individuals that are associated with radicalisation and according to some of the available assessment tools the inmate is considered as violent ex- tremist offender. In such cases the approach adopted by the institutions tends to violate a number of rights with the aim of de-radicalising the individual. Further more both through the reviewed literature it is evident that number of inmates that tend to follow or are involved in radical ideologies tends to be pretty low. Also from the data extracted from the focus groups hence the risk of radicalisation is considered as limited and in some cases inexistent. The edu- cational treatments that FAIR created in order to mitigate can be useful to apply with any inmates and not only with those that had been involved in offences related to violent extremist behaviour. The scope behind this treatment is to provide the offender the full spectrum of opportunities for their future. Thus, the practices being provided by this project can be adapted to for the prison environment to help in the rehabilitation as well as in the reintegration back in society of all those individuals that are considered at risk of becoming violent actors. Thus, to exploit FAIR and use it up to its utmost it is key to: • Include the actors involved in the imposing the sentences related to ter- rorism; • Identify any lacunae in defining radicalisation, finding alternatives to im- prisonment and the methods to monitor the risk of violent extremism; and • explore the role of society, the authorities and other services and their multi-disciplinary networks in the prevention or mitigation of violent extrem- ism. Different tools are employed to reach these different targets, and counter-re- cruitment strategies should include different tactics based on a deep under- standing. The recommendations that FAIR is proposing on the potential chang- es in the criminal justice system (whether at the law courts, prisons or other institutions), the potential legislative modifications and also changes in politics aim at improving the current existing systems. It is important to note that these recommendations are to be modified and adapted to the respective nations where they are to be employed in order to be appositely tailor-made. Yet it is important that countries adopt more open agendas that aim at evaluating the practices and recommendations derived from projects like FAIR and different 54 countries around the globe. This does not mean that one can find some kind of panacea for such a phenomenon, but the aim is to hinder the possibilities of keeping such extreme ideologies from flourishing further and study all op- portunities to tackle the scourge of violent extremism at its sources and from different fronts avoiding to employ violent measures. Msida, 11 September 2019 Trevor Calafato Senior Lecturer at University of Malta 55 56 BIBLIOGRAPHY AAVV, Diritti Doveri Solidarietà. 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