Top psychologist: No certainty terror offenders can be 'cured'
Dominic C at the BBC

The psychologist behind the UK's main deradicalisation programme for terror offenders says it can never be certain that attackers have been "cured".

Christopher Dean told the BBC some terror offenders who take part in his Healthy Identity Intervention (HII) scheme appear to regress because of their uniquely complex identities.

Mr Dean spoke out after HII participant Usman Khan stabbed two people to death near London Bridge on 29 November.

Khan, 28, was shot dead by police.

He was jailed eight years ago for planning to set up a terrorism training camp - but appeared to be responding to rehabilitation by the time of his release in December 2018.

In the attack in November he killed Jack Merritt, 25, and Saskia Jones, 23, at a prisoner rehabilitation event in Fishmongers' Hall in the City of London.

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Crumples cure....24/7 bacon vids + bacon smell, and they'll either come around or go so insane with inner self torture they'll forget how externalise their hate?

Cured from what?

tuco wrote:Cured from what?

Only taking half the flying lessons?

tuco wrote:Cured from what?

It is a peculiar framing to talk of "cure" as if radical action for a cause were a disease.
Maybe that's a plot for another Star Wars movie:
"How to cure a Jedi"

Ask Obi-Wan.

'Cure' a terrorist mind-set?

You might as well try to 'cure' a Christian or Muslim mind-set. In days gone by the only 'cure' was to be burnt at the stake or go to war...

Lock 'em up for life.

Alan B wrote:'Cure' a terrorist mind-set?

You might as well try to 'cure' a Christian or Muslim mind-set. In days gone by the only 'cure' was to be burnt at the stake or go to war...

Lock 'em up for life.

Cracking down hard on "terrorists" creates more terrorists.

The alternative could be to tackle the injustice that fuels their cause and provide legitimate routes to justice.

Not all recidivism can be prevented. Pictures at seven.

GrahamH wrote:Cracking down hard on "terrorists" creates more terrorists.

Depends on what exactly is meant by "cracking down hard" of course. If you mean to say drop bombs from drones on weddings in Yemen and killing civilians just to get at some terrorist, and then rationalizing the murder of innocent bystanders as necessary "collateral damage" in "the war on terror", then I agree with you. That will just fuel and inspire more hate and fundamentalism.

But even if we could somehow magically prevent the US and Israel, and it's allies, from doing such things, that also wouldn't provide any guarantees against future terrorism, nor would it guarantee that some fundamentalist nutbag currently undergoing a rehabilitation program would be "cured". Guarantees are a pipe dream, and shouldn't form the basis of any argument seeking to stop such rehabilitation programs.

I feel like the idea of a guaranteed cure is an unreasonable bar to set. There are no guarantees in this way with human psychology. We could probably do way more, and be way more effective at preventing terrorism, especially homegrown terrorism by people who grow up in the west but still become attracted to extremism. I've read numerous accounts now from people who joined ISIS and later regretted it, and a recurring theme is that they express a lack of meaning in their lives prior to dedicating their lives to version three of The Abrahamic Cult.

Alleviating the causes of various territorial and religious grievances (righting certain historical and ongoing injustices), is only going to be part of that equation. Even if we did that, it is entirely possible we'd still see a contingent of young men and women attracted to extremism because they still feel a lack of direction and purpose in life. They're still going to need to feel that there is some purpose to living a "normal" life.

But there is a case to be made for another type of "cracking down hard" on terrorism. Not dropping bombs on random muslims, but we need policies and legislation to combat the proliferation of hateful preachings and preachers. Stop giving access to Saudi-Arabian wahabi preachers to come and spew their bullshit.

I see. So sorting out Bush & Blaire who were involved in the Iraq war which led to ISIS would 'cure' the ISIS mind-set?

'Suddenly' they would all return back 'normal' life... I don't think ISIS thinks their existence is due to an 'injustice' but rather a 'God-given right'.

I cannot see how a religiously inspired mind-set that has as one of its fundamental tenets that everyone else must adopt their religion or die, can be 'cured'.

Alan B wrote:I see. So sorting out Bush & Blaire who were involved in the Iraq war which led to ISIS would 'cure' the ISIS mind-set?

No, who the fuck said that?

Might not be a cure but life can be made uncomfortable for them and if you delete enough, I'm not advocating this, then there won't be any left. That modern advertising allows individual targetting shows the technology already exists for keyhole surgery on the problem of extremism, how often do you hear of social media being a idealogical echo chamber, with regards extremes if a regime felt it was necessary or progressive as a thing to do in advanced industrial nation there is no need for colateral damage upon elimanation of a unhealthy belief via the ones holding it. Could say it's a ticking time-bomb of social media and far right populist leaders that might come together towards the end of this new decade to cure extremism? Fighting fire with fire so to speak.

https://thenextweb.com/distract/2019/04 ... -villains/

Alan B wrote:
I cannot see how a religiously inspired mind-set that has as one of its fundamental tenets that everyone else must adopt their religion or die, can be 'cured'.

But you ARE aware that there are numerous people who have left ISIS(and many other terrorist organizations) and tried to return to a normal life?

There are people who really do deconvert from that mindset. Perhaps it would be a good idea to try to find out what the causes are, and learn from that.

What are the contributing causes to becoming a terrorist, and what are the contributing causes to leaving it behind again? To the extent it is possible we should learn what causes and "cures" terrorism, and try to pursue those factors. Right?

Rumraket wrote:
I feel like the idea of a guaranteed cure is an unreasonable bar to set. There are no guarantees in this way with human psychology.

Absolutely.

Professor Duff’s team had concerned themselves fundamentally with a statistical analysis of the problem as a whole, in tandem with and related to a psychochemical and behavioural analysis of over a thousand individual radical muslims:

“And we came to the inevitable conclusion that the one course of action the authorities must take is… To cut off their goolies. Cut their goolies off!”

Rumraket wrote:Alleviating the causes of various territorial and religious grievances (righting certain historical and ongoing injustices), is only going to be part of that equation. Even if we did that, it is entirely possible we'd still see a contingent of young men and women attracted to extremism because they still feel a lack of direction and purpose in life. They're still going to need to feel that there is some purpose to living a "normal" life.

Surely that is tractable. enabling purposeful meaningful channels could be done and could even be directed to the root causes. Engagement in a political process to resolve some of the societal problems is an example that seems to have been fruitful in N.I. and S.A.
I'm not persuaded that people that have turned to radical action to oppose a burning injustice could be talked into ignoring that injustice through some other meaningful occupation.

Alan B wrote:I see. So sorting out Bush & Blaire who were involved in the Iraq war which led to ISIS would 'cure' the ISIS mind-set?

'Suddenly' they would all return back 'normal' life... I don't think ISIS thinks their existence is due to an 'injustice' but rather a 'God-given right'.

I cannot see how a religiously inspired mind-set that has as one of its fundamental tenets that everyone else must adopt their religion or die, can be 'cured'.

Is there any evidence that people are radicalised just by telling them that Allah wants them to kill anyone who does not convert to Islam?

What seems credible to me, that I have seen accounts of, is the pointing to persecution of Muslims and the exploitation of resources. That is the sort of thing that leads people to take up arms. Nothing specific to one religion about that. Trade, diplomacy and political process have had some success. denying terrorists "the oxygen of publicity", discriminating against a religion, harsh sanctions that hurt ordinary people and harsh sentencing of those that have not taken extreme action all seem likely to make the problem worse.

GrahamH wrote:

Alan B wrote:I see. So sorting out Bush & Blaire who were involved in the Iraq war which led to ISIS would 'cure' the ISIS mind-set?

'Suddenly' they would all return back 'normal' life... I don't think ISIS thinks their existence is due to an 'injustice' but rather a 'God-given right'.

I cannot see how a religiously inspired mind-set that has as one of its fundamental tenets that everyone else must adopt their religion or die, can be 'cured'.

Is there any evidence that people are radicalised just by telling them that Allah wants them to kill anyone who does not convert to Islam?

There probably are some, very extremely small minority, for whom that is all it takes. God said it in an old book, that's enough for them to believe it. But the vast majority of muslims don't become terrorists, so since they're reading the same scriptures, there must be other explanations. And even among the cohort of people who become terrorists, it would be silly do think all it takes is to read particular Qu'ranic sections to them to turn them into full-blown ISIS fighters.

What seems credible to me, that I have seen accounts of, is the pointing to persecution of Muslims and the exploitation of resources. That is the sort of thing that leads people to take up arms. Nothing specific to one religion about that. Trade, diplomacy and political process have had some success. denying terrorists "the oxygen of publicity", discriminating against a religion, harsh sanctions that hurt ordinary people and harsh sentencing of those that have not taken extreme action all seem likely to make the problem worse.

These things are certainly contributing causes to terrorism, but they too can't be the totality of what explains at least islamic terrorist organizations.

The african american population in the US has seen unbelievable historical injustices, and yet they generally don't have a terrorist problem. It would be silly to deny that islam is a factor that explains some of the attributes of islamic terrorist organizations. It should be possible for rational individuals to recognize this, and state as much, and yet also understand that it isn't the sole or only contributing cause of terrorism.

We need to understand both the international, religional, but also social, religious, and psychological causes of what makes a person become a terrorist. All of these things contribute to it, no single one of them can take on the total responsibility of turning an otherwise cognitively normal person into a suicidal mass-murderer.

Reality is complicated, who knew?

Rumraket wrote:
We need to understand both the international, religional, but also social, religious, and psychological causes of what makes a person become a terrorist. All of these things contribute to it, no single one of them can take on the total responsibility of turning an otherwise cognitively normal person into a suicidal mass-murderer.

Reality is complicated, who knew?

No disagreement there.

Age might play a factor I think. People radicalized at a young age may not be “locked in” if caught early enough.

And why are we just talking about muslims as if they are the only people prone to being radicalized?