17 of the 163 prisoners classified as jihadists by Penitentiary Institutions have voluntarily requested to enter the new deradicalization program launched in March by the Ministry of the Interior, as confirmed by EL PAÍS in prison sources. This reintegration plan, aimed specifically at Islamist terrorists, replaces the one that was activated in 2016, which the Interior interrupted in 2022 due to its poor results, after having attracted only 52 inmates in the years it was in force.
The objective of the so-called Intervention Program in Violent Radicalization Processes of a Jihadist Character is to “prevent and prevent those who carry out the program from carrying out illicit or illegal conduct linked to violent radicalization of jihadist etiology”, both within prison and once they regain freedom, and thus avoid recidivism. So far, seven prisoners who served time for these crimes in Spain have returned to prison for committing crimes. Five, accused again of jihadist activities. Among them, Mustafa Maya Amaya and Deniz Ibryam Redzheb, who returned to prison just over a year after being released accused of indoctrinating other people, the same crime for which they each served an eight-year sentence.
The new plan contemplates that jihadist inmates participate in 66 sessions – most of them group sessions – led by prison professionals trained in the subject, as well as by a psychologist and researcher from the Department of Social Psychology and Organizations of the National University of Education. Distance (UNED), an academic institution that has had a “fundamental” participation in the development of this reintegration plan, according to penitentiary sources.
In these meetings, professionals will approach the inmates from the narrative from which they constructed the discourse with which they justify Islamist violence to emotional aspects linked to their social environment or their values, to end up working on aspects that prevent relapses in the future. . The plan does not contemplate for now that they sit face to face with victims of jihadist terrorism, unlike what happens with ETA prisoners, who participate in the so-called restorative justice workshops as part of their reintegration. The time planned by the Interior to complete the new deradicalization program is between 15 and 16 months.
Before starting it, the inmates have been informed that their participation in this program – as is the case with the rest of the more than 20 reintegration plans for those convicted of other crimes that the Interior provides – will not mean a reduction in their sentence or the access to prison benefits. It is the way to guarantee that their interest is sincere and that they are not seeking any advantage that goes beyond the strictly personal level. However, Penitentiary Institutions do take this into account when making assessments to, for example, improve their prison regime or grant them exit permits.
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The program is mainly aimed at jihadist prisoners who are serving a final sentence, but will also include preventive prisoners. All of them are in one of the three groups into which Penitentiary Institutions has classified this group since 2014. The first, called Group A, is formed by prisoners who entered prison for the commission of jihadist terrorism crimes. According to the latest official statistics, on October 30, this group consisted of 67 inmates. The second or Group B is made up of inmates who, although they were imprisoned for common crimes, have been detected proselytizing radical Islam in prisons. It is made up of 40 inmates. Finally, Group C is made up of prisoners who are under observation for having shown the first symptoms of radicalization. Their number is 56.
It is planned that the prisoners who participate will be subjected to four evaluations during the course to check their evolution. The first is done before starting and, with it, it is studied if they are prepared to participate in it. The second occurs after seven months, shortly before completing half of the program. And the third, at the end of it. The fourth and final one will take place six months after it has finished. These evaluations will be carried out both by professionals from Penitentiary Institutions who have received specific training and by external experts from the UNED.
Ángel Gómez, professor of Social Psychology at UNED and expert in the prevention, detection and neutralization of the processes that lead to violent radicalization, has been a key player in the more than two years of work that it has taken to develop the program. During this time, Gómez and the team that has worked on the new plan have visited 35 prisons and conducted 523 interviews with prisoners from groups A, B and C, but also with other prisoners unrelated to jihadism. This work has made it possible to identify the mechanisms underlying violent radicalization and, at the same time, the variables that can favor the reintegration of these inmates. Penitentiary sources emphasize the enormous difficulty for this type of criminals to completely separate themselves from radicalism, but they believe it is possible to get them to desist from the use of violence.
The development of this program began in 2019. Then, Fernando Grande-Marlaska’s department published the National Strategy against Terrorism, which advocated paying “special attention to penitentiary centers” in the fight against jihadist terrorism and opened the door to reinforce the teams of Penitentiary Institution officials who monitored these prisoners. This document already raised the need to make changes to the deradicalization program given the modest results of the 2016 program, prepared during the time of Juan Ignacio Zoido, of the PP, as Minister of the Interior.
Since then, Penitentiary Institutions has worked on updating this and other tools used with this group. The first to be changed, at the beginning of this year, was the one used to detect radicalism in prisoners and prevent the spread of violent Islam within prisons. Among the changes introduced was the increase in the number of indicators that prison experts use to determine the dangerousness of these inmates, which went from 39 to 63. In addition, the frequency with which these assessments were made was increased, that went from semester to quarterly. And, as the main novelty, it was established that all jihadist prisoners would undergo a final study on their level of radicalism one month before the scheduled date for their release, with the aim of evaluating the risk posed by their release. Now, the new reintegration program has been the last piece.
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