Introduction
What works in prisons to prevent politically motivated crime? – Evaluating recent efforts and looking ahead
During the last decade, European prison services significantly improved the capacity in disengagement, de-radicalisation and resocialisation (DDR) of violent extremist or terrorist offenders (VETO’s). This work was for many years focusing on Islamic terrorism. To this day, the Islamist group of VETO’s has a significant impact on prison operations in a few European countries, requiring continuous risk assessment, treatment, pre- and post-release measures. Now we see a broader spectrum of extremism emerge, ranging from right wing extremist movements, violent anti-government protests, involuntary celibacy, separatist, and left-wing activities.
EuroPris is organising a workshop to summarise and move on with the efforts in this field.
- How do we integrate the experiences made during the intense build-up of DDR capacity, into sustainable prison systems?
- How successful are existing prison regimes, assessment tools and re-integration measures for these groups of offenders?
- How are these tools implemented, and are they fit for purpose also for new forms of extremism?
These questions, and more, will be discussed in the upcoming EuroPris workshop on Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism in prisons. The workshop will result in an output document to be shared with other members of EuroPris.
Workshop objective: Lessons learned and documented from the last 10 years of PCVE development in prisons, including recommendations for the future.
The workshop will result in an output document with advice about successful approaches for future use, to be shared among EuroPris members.
Participants
This will be a closed-door event for about 40 experts from EuroPris members and other prison jurisdictions in the CoE region. Being a closed-door event means that external parties will not be invited, and there will be no reports or minutes from the event.
Registration
The travel & accommodation costs must be covered by the participants. There is no fee for participation and subsistence during the event is covered by EuroPris. If you would like to register to the event, please click here for the registration link.
The deadline for registration is 6 November 2023.
Agenda
The duration is 1,5 day, starting 14 November in the morning and ending 15 November by lunchtime. This will be an interactive event and the agenda will be designed to facilitate discussions and exchanges between experts and practitioners. Each theme will be introduced by one or two presentations, to be followed by moderated round table discussions, world cafés or similar. Parallel sessions may be held if appropriate, for example in the second day, deepening discussions on certain areas, prioritized by the participants themselves.
Following the workshop objective, the event will be covering both the retrospective analysis of what has been done in the last decade and the forward-looking recommendations for the future.
The workshop will touch upon the following themes:
- New forms and perspectives on violent extremism and its impact on prison services
- A critical view on risk assessment
- Prison regimes
- Treatment and rehabilitation
- Interagency cooperation in pre-release measures, post-release measures, monitoring and support
- Foreign nationals awaiting deportation
Workshop Moderator: Paul Mott, Head of Joint Extremism Unit HMPPS, England and Wales
Day 1
Opening
Giovanni Russo, Head of Department of Penitentiary Administration, Italy and Gustav Tallving, Executive Director, EuroPris
Presentation: Stepping up – Responding to Terror Attacks Committed by Offenders (Paul Mott, OBE – UK – Head of the Joint Extremism Unit)
Presentation: The most important lessons and insights from a decade with RAN PRISONS -The added value of a safe haven for a community of practitioners (Steven Lenos, RAN Practitioners Staff – expert and trainer)
Presentation: The Belgian experience on PCVE in prisons (Priscilla Bigalli & Hanne Jansen, The Belgian Federal public service of Justice)
Panel discussion
Ezio Antonio Giacalone, Director of the Central Investigation Office at the Penitentiary Department, Italy
Priscilla Bigalli & Hanne Jansen, The Belgian Federal public service of Justice, Belgium
Steven Lenos (RAN)
Workshop session 1 – Failures and successes in offender risk assessment
Presentation: Risk assessment: how we have built a suitable procedure (Barbara Napelli – Head of international terrorism sector at the Central Investigation Office)
Presentation: Applying the precautionary principle – learning the hard way (Debbie Marsh – UK – HMPPS Lead Psychologist for Counter Terrorism
Round table discussion – Recommendations for the future
Workshop session 2 – Inter-agency cooperation
Presentation: Interagency synergies in counter terrorism: the Italian experience (Arturo Varriale – Director of the Secretariat of the Committee for Strategic Counter-terrorism Analysis, Italy)
Presentation: Prisoners awaiting deportation – meeting the needs of a vulnerable group (Petra Pavlas, FNPP Expert group coordinator, EuroPris/MoJ Austria)
Round table discussion – Recommendations for the future
Day 2
Workshop session 3 – Treatment and rehabilitation
Presentation: Disengagement and reintegration of radicalised women inmates, the French experience (Julien Loty and Gwenola Arvoir, French Prison Administration)
Presentation: Knowing Islam to counter radicalism in prison (Michele Bernardini, Professor in Persian Language and Literature, and History of Iran and Ottoman Empire, Italy)
Presentation: A customised treatment programme in Sweden (Anders Forsgren, Security Expert, Swedish Prison and Probation Service (SPPS))
Round table discussion – Recommendations for the future
You can download the full agenda here.
Venue
Conference hall at the Headquarters of the Italian Prison Administration, Rome.
Address: Largo Luigi Daga 2, I-00164 ROME, Italy
Accommodation
Participants are welcomed to book their accommodation in the hotel The Caesar Roma. The hotel is located ca. 2km from the workshop venue and EuroPris arranged a 20% discount for your stay by using the code Rome2023. If you would like to book your room, please use the following link: The Caesar Roma – Roma (RM) – Official reservation system (simplebooking.it)
Hotel Address: Via della Pisana 374 – 00163 Roma, Italy
