While the detection, assessment, and reporting of various forms of radicalization and extremist violence were initially led by security and intelligence services, many governments are putting increased pressure on practitioners from the education, community and health and social services to “detect” and report individuals vulnerable to violent radicalized.
Scientific evidence, however, increasingly demonstrates the failure and dangers associated with the detection approach. Deleterious effects on individuals and communities include the high rate of false positives (false accusations) and ensuing stigmatizing, the feeling of ostracism by targeted communities, as well as the chilling effect related to the atmosphere of surveillance and denunciation in previously trusted settings such as schools, health institutions, and community spaces.
In the coming year, CPN-PREV will provide a full critical appraisal of the state of evidence on the reliability, validity, sensitivity, and outcomes of detection and assessment tools and procedures for individuals at risk of radicalization and extremist violence.
CPN-PREV will then highlight WHAT NOT TO DO, as well as generate evidence-based recommendations on WHAT TO DO for adequate evaluation of individuals at risk.
In April of 2018, Global Affairs Canada awarded funding to the UNESCO-PREV Chair to create a massive open online course (MOOC) – titled “From Hate to Hope” that draws from cutting-edge research in multiple disciplines from humanities and social sciences to address strategies that build resilience against hate through the use of pluralistic dialogues. The resources showcased herein comprise of seven videos (each are available with English, French and Arabic subtitles) that were created as part of “From Hate to Hope” which feature the voices of experts in extremism, political science, psychology, religion, humanities, education, art-based pedagogies, sociology, media studies and computer science debating the multi-faceted nature of combating hate and designing effective primary prevention activities in scholastic as well as public spaces.
The media coverage of mass killings is a delicate but necessary process for all citizens entitled to quality information. However, the media coverage of these events can have negative repercussions both on the health of the population and on the health of journalists assigned to cover these events. Adequate coverage of the killings could still limit the negative health impacts of the media coverage of these killings.
