SERA Preventing radicalisation in prisons -

P a g e | 20 ERASMUS+ N° 580247-EPP-1-2016-1-FR-EPPKA3-IPI-SOC-IN For inmates in group A, the course will focus on self-awareness, personal change, religion, values, with a particular emphasis on empathy towards victims. In the final stage of the course, inmates will be expected to take responsibility for their personal change. The course for groups B and C will include similar topics, but give greater prominence to cultural and religious pluralism (Acaip, 2016). According to Tolosa (2017), “The processes of radicalisation in certain environments and the rise of Jihadist Salafist ideology are nowadays present realities. Prisons have become one of the areas where there is a higher rate of indoctrination with respect to the most radical Islamist ideology. The passage by them of some of the current leaders of jihadist organizations, as well as of terrorists who have committed attacks on their release from European prisons, exemplify some of the evidence on the internal processes of radicalisation that occur in these environments. In order to deal with this threat, pioneering de-radicalisation programs in prisons in several countries have recently begun to emerge, obtaining different results to date.” In March 2018 the General Secretariat of Penitentiary Institutions placed an order of services to put into operation a new instrument for assessing the risk of violent radicalism with the general objective of detecting and assessing variables that may indicate a real risk of committing acts related to violent radicalism. And the specific objectives: • Helping in making decisions regarding prison treatment, reorienting detection, monitoring and intervention and pointing out specific objectives. • Serve as an instrument of coordination between the different prison departments, in particular, the areas of security and treatment. • Systematize the treatment of violent radicalism carried out in different prisons. The Real Instituto ELCANO (2017), looked at two factors which explain jihadist radicalisation in Spain. The contact with an agent of jihadist radicalisation and the existence of previous social ties with radicalised individuals explain why, within Spain, there are Muslims who adhere to a violent version of Salafism and engage in terrorist activities while others do not. They also allow us to understand why there are pockets of radicalisation and jihadist recruitment in our country. A quantitative study of 178 individuals detained in Spain between 2013 and 2016 for activities related to jihadist terrorism shows that there are two crucial factors to understand their radicalisation. On the one hand, face-to-face or online contact with a radicalisation agent. On the other, the existence of previous social links with other radicalised individuals. The combined effect of both factors explains why some Muslims are radicalised while others do not, despite living in the same country and sharing similar socio-demographic features. It also allows us to understand why, also in Spain, the jihadist radicalisation does not take place in a uniform and proportional way to the distribution of the Muslim population, but in localized pockets in certain demarcations of the national territory.