Islamistic radicalization within prison settings: Risk patterns and trajectories

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In the light of a global increase in the number of violent acts of extremism, this project inquires how prevalent sets of attitudes conducive to radicalization are among young adult prisoners and how such attitudes may be mediated by the German prison system. There is a need for criminological research that could provide guidelines for identifying trends to radicalism during the course of imprisonment and for effectively preventing their consolidation. To date however, little is known about underlying mechanisms and relevant factors in the context of radicalization. Similarly, empirical findings about the extent of associated risk potentials within prison settings are lacking. The project therefore aims to quantitatively and qualitatively assess the prevalence of risk criteria that are indicative of individual radicalization processes or may account for their formation based on the model of Kruglanski (2014). Such risk criteria are: biographical characteristics, personal variables, ideological factors (Islamist and/or Salafist attitudes) and religious knowledge as well as external factors influencing the individual. Assessment instruments for those characteristics have been developed and tested. - As part of the first study a sample of young Muslim prisoners (N = 150) will be recruited for a repeated survey to assess those characteristics mentioned above. This study focuses on the association of the variables among them and tries to compare the assessments of the two time points also with regard to the conditions in the prison at the beginning and the end of the detention. - In the second study prisoners who were labeled as a Islamist agitators or who are being on their way to become an Islamist agitator (identified in Bavarian and in prisons in other federal states) will be interviewed (N = 40) in addition to the surveys. The goal is to identify individual patterns of radicalization. This information will be enriched by information given by the prison officers and through observations from prison files. Based on these qualitative analyses and the aggregation of all available information the data will be analyzed with regard to individual developmental patterns and with regard to causal processes of Islamist radicalization. The data provided by both studies may help to provide guidance for initiating effective prevention measures in prison settings. At the same time an assessment instrument will be developed that is able to measure the degree of radicalization of a prisoner and his or her resulting potential hazards or violent potentials for committing a terrorist attack.