Needs, Rights and Systems: Increasing Canadian Intimate Bystander Reporting on Radicalizing to Violence

ABSTRACT

The first people to suspect or know about someone involved in acts of violent extremism will often be those closest to them: their friends, family and community insiders. They are ideally placed to play particular roles: (a) to notice any changes or early warning signs that someone is considering violent action to harm others, and (b) to influence and facilitate vulnerable individuals to move away from violent extremist involvements. The willingness of those close to potential or suspected violent actors to come forward and share their knowledge and concerns with authorities is thus a critical element in efforts to prevent violent extremist action. This Canadian study replicates the focus and methodology of three previous Community Reporting Thresholds studies with an increased scope and sample size. Our findings highlight the ways in which Canadian community respondents framed their understanding of and engagement with reporting as intimate bystanders on someone close radicalising to violence in relation to three main domains: needs-based, rights-based and systems-based. This paper will explore what we have learned from data across three Canadian cities with a particular emphasis on how the domains of needs, rights and systems are conceptualized and enacted by Canadian respondents.

KEYWORDS:

• Community reporting thresholds
• violent extremism
• Canada
• P/CVE

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

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3. D. Eisenman, S. Weine, P. Thomas, and M. Grossman, “Community Reporting Thresholds: Sharing Information with Authorities Concerning Terrorism and Targeted Violence” (Final Research Report for National Institute of Justice. Federal Award Number 2018-ZA-CX-004, 2022a), https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/304119.pdf; D. Eisenman, S. Weine, N. Shah, N. Jones, C. Polutnik, P. Thomas, and M. Grossman, “Bystander Reporting to Prevent Violent Extremism and Targeted Violence: Learning From Practitioners,” Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression (2022b), https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19434472.2022.2130960.

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11. M. P. Rowe, “Bystanders: ‘See Something, Say Something’ is Not Enough,” Alternatives to the High Cost of Litigation 39, no. 10 (2021): 153–65, https://doi.org/10.1002/alt.21914.

12. Grossman, Community Reporting Thresholds; M. Grossman, “When the ‘Right Thing To Do’ Feels So Wrong: Australian Muslim perspectives on ‘Intimates’ Reporting to Authorities About Violent Extremism,” in Islamophobia and Radicalization: Breeding Intolerance and Violence, ed. J. Esposito and D. Iner (Berlin: Springer, 2018b), 203–22.

13. P. Thomas, M. Grossman, S. Miah, and K. Christmann, Community Reporting Thresholds; P. Thomas, M. Grossman, K. Christmann, and S. Miah, “Overcoming Barriers to Community Reporting on Violent Extremism by ‘Intimates’: Emergent Findings From International Evidence,” Critical Studies on Terrorism 13, no. 4 (2020): 638–59, https://doi.org/10.1080/17539153.2020.1791389.

14. The previous Community Reporting Thresholds studies have had tangible impacts on P/CVE policy and practice in their respective countries. The Australian study has led to the Step Together Australian government-supported information campaign and telephone/online support programming for families and communities (https://steptogether.nsw.gov.au), while the U.K. study has directly informed (with the U.K. study PIs acting as advisers) the U.K. National Counter-Terrorism Policing-led Act Early campaign and website (https://actearly.uk). Aimed explicitly at intimate bystanders, ‘Act Early’ provides education and guidance on possible signs of radicalisation and approaches to engaging in difficult conversations with a loved one, alongside information on how to report a concern and what any subsequent preventative intervention would involve. The Step Together program in Australia, which provides advice, information and support to community members and social service providers in the state of New South Wales who are concerned about or dealing with clients who may be involved in violent extremist activity, has in part served as a pilot program to inform consideration of a national Australian telephone and digital help-line service.

15. See note 3 above.

16. See note 1 above.

17. Grossman, Community Reporting Thresholds.

18. P. Thomas, M. Grossman, S. Miah, and K. Christmann, Community Reporting Thresholds.

19. D. Eisenman, S. Weine, P. Thomas, and M. Grossman, Community Reporting Thresholds.

20. C. Barter and E. Renold, “The Use of Vignettes in Qualitative Research,” Social Research Update 25 (Summer 1999), https://sru.soc.surrey.ac.uk/SRU25.html.

21. S. J. Baele, L. Brace, and T. G. Coan, “From “Incel” to “Saint”: Analyzing the Violent Worldview Behind the 2018 Toronto Attack,” Terrorism and Political Violence 33, no. 8 (2021): 1667–91, https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2019.1638256.

22. Grossman, Community Reporting Thresholds; P. Thomas, M. Grossman, S. Miah, and K. Christmann, Community Reporting Thresholds.

23. S. K. Thompson and E. Leroux, Final Report—Design and Performance: Developing Canadian Partnerships for Countering Violent Extremism (Public Safety Canada’s Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence, 2020); S. K. Thompson and E. Leroux, “Lessons Learned From Dual Site Formative Evaluations of Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Programming Co-Led by Canadian Police,” Journal of Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism (2022), https://doi.org/10.1080/18335330.2022.2040741.

24. P. Thomas, M. Grossman, S. Miah, and K. Christmann, Community Reporting Thresholds, (2017); P. Thomas, M. Grossman, K. Christmann, and S. Miah, “Overcoming Barriers to Community Reporting on Violent Extremism by ‘Intimates’” (2020).

25. Ibid.

26. Ibid.

27. Grossman, Community Reporting Thresholds, 47–48.

28. See note 17 above.

29. R. Nalbandov, “Irrational Rationality of Terrorism,” Journal of Strategic Security 6, no. 4 (2013): 92–102, http://dx.doi.org/10.5038/1944-0472.6.4.5.

30. See note 27 above.

31. Ibid.

32. See note 18 above.

33. See note 27 above.

34. See note 18 above.

35. See note 19 above.

36. H. Nel, “A Comparison between the Asset-Oriented and Needs-Based Community Development Approaches in Terms of Systems Changes,” Social Work in Action 30, no. 1 (2018), https://doi.org/10.1080/09503153.2017.1360474; U. George, “A Needs-Based Model for Settlement Service Delivery for Newcomers to Canada,” International Social Work 45, no. 4 (2002): 465–580, https://doi.org/10.1177/00208728020450040501; S. Birch, G. Kephart, G. Tomblin-Murphy, L. O’Brien-Pallas, R. Alder, and A. MacKenzie, “Human Resources Planning and the Production of Health: A Needs-Based Analytical Framework,” University of Toronto Press Journals (2022), https://www.utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/9R62-Q0V1-L188-1406.

37. M. Garcia, “A Public Health Approach to Countering Violent Extremism,” Just Security, April 3, 2019, https://www.justsecurity.org/63455/a-public-health-approach-to-countering-violent-extremism; N. D. Shortland, N. Evans, and J. Colautti, “A Public Health Ethics Model of Countering Violent Extremism,” Terrorism and Political Violence 33, no. 2 (2021), 324–37, https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2021.1880231; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. Countering Violent Extremism Through Public Health Practice: Proceedings of a Workshop (Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2017), https://doi.org/10.17226/24638; S. Harris-Hogan, K. Barrelle, and A. Zammit, “What is Countering Violent Extremism? Exploring CVE Policy and Practice in Australia,” Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression 8, no. 1 (2015): 6–24, https://doi.org/10.1080/19434472.2015.1104710.

38. S. Birch, G. Kephart, G. Tomblin-Murphy, L. O’Brien-Pallas, R. Alder, and A. MacKenzie, “Human Resources Planning and the Production of Health.”

39. A. Cornwall and C. Nyamu-Musembi, “Putting the ‘Rights-Based’ Approach to Development into Perspective,” Third World Quarterly 25, no. 8 (2004): 1415–37, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3993794?origin=JSTOR-pdf.

40. H. Nel, “A Comparison between the Asset-Oriented.”

41. K. K. Kirst-Ashman and G. H. Hull, Jr., Generalist Practice with Organisations and Communities, 3rd ed. (Australia: Thomson/Brooks/Cole, 2012).

42. See note 40 above.

43. See note 15 above.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Public Safety Canada's Community Resilience Fund [8000c19491].

Notes on contributors

Sara K. Thompson

Sara K. Thompson is a Professor of Criminology at Toronto Metropolitan University. Her recent and ongoing research focuses on urban violence, radicalization to violence/violent extremism, and the implementation and evaluation of violence prevention programs and policy. Since 2012, she has been involved as principal investigator on a number of major research projects funded by the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), Public Safety Canada, the Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence, and Defence Research & Development Canada. Thompson has presented on her research at a range of domestic and international academic and practitioner conferences, and has briefed high-level government, police and other security officials on issues related to urban violence, terrorism/violent extremism, and program evaluation. One of the key drivers of her work is the desire to inform effective, legally responsible and socially engaged violence-prevention policies and programs.

Michele Grossman

Michele Grossman is Professor and Research Chair in Diversity and Community Resilience at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia, where she also serves as Director of the Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies (CRIS) and Convenor of the AVERT (Addressing Violent Extremism and Radicalisation to Terrorism) Research Network. Her research interests focus primarily on building resilience to violent extremism and terrorism, engaging communities in P/CVE initiatives, and understanding terrorist recruitment and reengagement, with research funding from Australia’s Department of Home Affairs, Australian Federal Police, State Government of Victoria, Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (CREST) (U.K.), Public Safety Canada, National Institute of Justice (U.S.) and EC Horizon 2020 amongst other funding schemes. She is an Associate Editor of Terrorism and Political Violence, a Robert Schuman (Distinguished Scholar) Fellow at European University Institute in Florence and a Visiting Professor at University of Huddersfield’s School of Education and Professional Development/Secure Societies Institute.

Paul Thomas

Paul Thomas is Professor of Youth and Policy and Associate Dean (Research) in the School of Education and Professional Development at the University of Huddersfield, U.K. A qualified Youth Worker, he has researched how the U.K.’s Prevent counter-terrorism strategy has been understood and enacted by ground-level practitioners, particularly educationalists, and experienced by the communities the policy addresses since it was launched in 2007. It has led to Paul giving oral evidence to the U.K. House of Commons inquiry on Prevent, to the high-profile book Responding to the Threat of Violent Extremism–Failing to Prevent (Bloomsbury, 2012), and articles in many leading journals. His research collaborations have included the first national study on the implementation of the “Prevent duty” in English schools and colleges (with Busher and Choudhury), and the studies on barriers to community members reporting concerns about an “intimate” (a friend or family member) becoming involved in violent extremism, in the U.K. (funded by CREST) and in the U.S. and Canadian replication and development studies. Thomas is an International Strategic Advisory Board member at the Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies (CRIS), hosted by Deakin University, Australia.