![Sample our Law journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5942/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Law.jpg"})
Abstract
Despite an increasing need to understand the aims of work with ex-prisoners convicted of terrorism offences, the knowledge base remains underdeveloped. Notwithstanding this limited theoretical and empirical foundation, practitioners in probation are increasingly faced with trying to successfully resettle these ex-prisoners. In the south of England, the organisation tasked with this work is London Probation Trust's Central Extremism Unit (CEU). Based on interviews and observational research with practitioners, this article sets out a framework for interpreting this work's aims from a practitioner perspective. Alongside describing the 13 primary aims of successful resettlement, the research sets out what success would ‘look like’, as well as considering some of the challenges in interpreting and promoting positive outcomes. The CEU's model reflects a multimodal approach, speaking to both criminogenic needs, and the primary themes of desistance. Within this, practitioners try to encourage the probationers to take control of their own life and develop an agentic approach to their present and future. It is in this way that successful resettlement is conceptualised by practitioners working in this field. The implications of these findings for current debates over the appropriate focus of work on countering violent extremism and returnees from overseas conflict are also discussed.
Notes on contributor
Sarah V. Marsden is a Lecturer in Terrorism Studies at the Handa Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, University of St Andrews. Her current work examines the social and political outcomes of terrorism from a relational perspective, considering its ineffectiveness and exploring why individuals and militant groups move away from violence.
Notes
1 Home Office figures do not distinguish in detail between the varying ideological motivations of those convicted of terrorism offences, instead referring to international, domestic, or Northern Ireland-related terrorism. This makes it difficult to identify exact figures for the number of people convicted of involvement in militant Islamist extremism. However, the category of ‘international terrorism’ is described by the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation as ‘largely al-Qa'ida related' (Anderson, Citation2014, p. 9), making it possible to identify an approximate number of convictions for those inspired by militant Islamism. Of those convicted of terrorism-related offences from 2001 to March 2014, 74.3% (301) were categorised as international, compared with 9.6% (39) Northern Ireland-related and 11.4% (46) domestic extremists, which includes far-right, anarchist, and animal rights extremists (Home Office, Citation2014).