Compendium of Good Practices in the Rehabilitation and Reintegration of Violent Extremist Offenders

Intervention, rehabilitation, and reintegration efforts are likely to be undermined if the wider prison regime does not support the humane treatment of prisoners in accordance with international law and standards.
Sufficient access to services, meaningful relationships, and activities may all serve to facilitate intervention, rehabilitation, and reintegration efforts.
Appropriate placement based on assessment of individual characteristics, risk, and need is necessary to support interventions and rehabilitation.
Staff involved in the everyday management of offenders should model ways of thinking, behaving, and relating that counter those associated with violent extremism and support those approaches adopted in interventions.
Staff members and violent extremist offenders need to feel safe, secure, and confident when engaging with each other if interventions and rehabilitative efforts are to be successful.
Professional and constructive staff-prisoner relationships may provide important opportunities to challenge ways of thinking about other groups, which may facilitate rehabilitation and reintegration.
All staff should have training in how their day-to-day actions and roles can support rehabilitative and reintegrative efforts.
Staff need to be alert to the impact of local, national, and international social and political events on the behavior of offenders and their participation and progress in interventions.

Information and intelligence sharing should be considered an important tool in informing and monitoring intervention and reintegration efforts.
Monitoring prisoners, visitors, and materials used in interventions can ensure interventions are not counterproductive.
Identification of offenders who are becoming radicalized to violent extremism; are resisting involvement in violent extremist groups, causes, and ideologies; or are becoming disillusioned with involvement may be crucial to help target interventions.
Appropriate assessment of risk and need is deemed crucial to inform intervention and reintegration planning, including its intended goals, outcomes, focus, and responsiveness to individual needs and circumstances.
Assessment protocols need to accommodate specific dynamic risk and protective factors and circumstances associated with violent extremist offending to inform and assess progress during interventions and activities appropriately and effectively. Yet, protective factors involved in assessment tools are dependent on the questions asked.
When appropriate, assessment protocols should include the contribution of the individual offender being assessed as this can provide a foundation for encouraging participation in interventions and collaboration in reintegration activities.

Regime, Security, and Assessment