Early detection of radicalization processes that may lead to violent extremism takes place in a grey area. Primarily because no one can truly predict when someone poses a risk before there are any indications of criminal acts. The local police have been given an important role in countering violent extremism (CVE) policy; namely proactive information gathering at a stage in which people are still law-abiding citizens. However, little is known about how they perceive their role in CVE. Therefore, this article examines how community police officers deal with their mandate to engage in early detection, and discusses the side effects that accompany this practice. Based on open interviews with 22 constables in the Netherlands, we focus on the risk assessments made by these local professionals. In this article, we aim to contribute to a more thorough, inclusive, and well-informed debate about community policing with regard to suspicions of extremist behaviour among youth.
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Early detection of radicalization processes that may lead to violent extremism takes place in a grey area. Primarily because no one can truly predict when someone poses a risk before there are any indications of criminal acts. The local police have been given an important role in countering violent extremism (CVE) policy; namely proactive information gathering at a stage in which people are still law-abiding citizens. However, little is known about how they perceive their role in CVE. Therefore, this article examines how community police officers deal with their mandate to engage in early detection, and discusses the side effects that accompany this practice. Based on open interviews with 22 constables in the Netherlands, we focus on the risk assessments made by these local professionals. In this article, we aim to contribute to a more thorough, inclusive, and well-informed debate about community policing with regard to suspicions of extremist behaviour among youth.
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In most models on terrorism, interaction with other radicals is a key factor. However, systematic empirical evidence that radical ties affect behaviour is scarce. Our access to detailed police information allows us to apply Social Network Analysis (SNA) on a Dutch Salafi-Jihadi network and analyse the social relationships and network positions of 80 actors, out of whom 20 turned to terrorist acts. The results suggest that ties to leaders and terrorist offenders, co-attendance of radicalising settings and greater structural embeddedness relate to the likelihood of individual actors turning to acts of terrorism. However, we also find some individual attributes that may offer competing explanations. In this paper we discuss our findings and address how future research may provide further insights into an important issue for agencies involved in countering terrorism: which radical actors, if any, are more likely to turn to acts of terrorism?
