TERRORISMMeasuring Change in Terrorist Engagement: Challenges and Future Directions
Changes in risk and protective factors can signal disengagement, enabling risk management resources to be allocated where they are needed most.
The majority of individuals detained as a result of engagement in terrorism will be released into the community. To ensure resources are targeted where they are required most to manage this risk, we need to establish which individuals are disengaging, reducing the need for intensive risk management. This article considers how we measure the progress individuals make towards disengagement and how this can be sustained long-term. Measuring these changes also contributes to evaluation of the effectiveness of interventions for terrorist offending.
Why Is Measuring Change Important?
Whilst there have been individuals who have reoffended on release, there are many more success stories; the majority of people successfully disengage from terrorism and reintegrate into society. Yet, their risk assessments often remain high. Assessments of risk typically combine the likelihood of the outcome with the potential severity. In relation to terrorist offending, the outcome is so unacceptable that even where the likelihood is low, risk judgements remain high to reflect the potential severity. This creates a challenge for decision makers being asked to consider release when risk judgments are not reflective of the changes an individual has made.
Evidencing and communicating these changes is essential to avoid inflated risk assessments, and to reinforce change. Measuring change enables us to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions and case management approaches in supporting successful reintegration, and to identify those individuals requiring more intensive support.
What Are the Challenges with Measuring Change?
Challenges exist with how we measure change for individuals convicted of all types of offences. The most common approach is to evidence change through assessment of reoffending risk; repurposing these risk assessments as measures of change. However, outcomes such as reoffending are rare, and very few risk assessment frameworks have demonstrated responsiveness to change in research (Ryland, Cook, Yukhnenko, Fitzpatrick, & Fazel, 2021).
In the risk averse field of counterterrorism, there are high levels of controls and restrictions on individuals. These hinder demonstrations of change or may misrepresent them as adaptations to the current environment rather than as results of internal shifts. Therefore, measures of change should be built into our risk assessments and account for context.
