DISCOVER 06 - 07
Reporting violent extremism When they work with new colleagues at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), the University of Illinois in Chicago and Ryerson University in Toronto, Professors Thomas and Grossman will adopt the same methodology that they used for their Australian and UK studies – although with much larger sample sizes – and will hold an intensive introductory workshop for all the research teams, to take place in Chicago.
For more information on the research in this article email: d.p.thomas@hud.ac.uk
Professor Paul Thomas
Community reporting
Family and friends of potential terrorists and perpetrators of atrocities such as school shootings could provide crucial information to the authorities in the fight against violent extremism. However, encouraging them to report their concerns to the authorities is a complex issue with barriers often preventing community reporting. Government agencies in the USA and Canada want to find out how they can forestall extremist violence and have called on the aid of Professor Paul Thomas who has researched the issue and provided policy guidelines in the UK.
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Professor Thomas has researched a wide range of community issues, including the Prevent programme that is designed to halt extremism. He has aided UK policymakers with his project Community Reporting Thresholds, funded by the UK’s Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (CREST). This resulted in the production of a report which made a series of recommendations that have influenced policymakers and counter-terrorism specialists, with whom he continues to collaborate. The CREST-funded research was carried out in tandem with Professor Michele Grossman of Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia. When the National Institute of Justice in the USA and Public Safety Canada both announced that they wished to fund investigations into methods of countering violent extremism, Professors Thomas and Grossman – who is also a Visiting Professor at Huddersfield – made successful applications, based on their research into community reporting thresholds. International collaboration In order to pass on their expertise they are working closely with universities in Los Angeles, Chicago and Toronto to look at the barriers faced by people in Canada and North America when reporting a loved one of suspected violent extremism.
Field workers will then conduct a series of in-depth interviews with members of the public who live in communities where there has been some history of radicalisation and violent extremism. A range of scenarios will be put to the interviewees regarding concerns about an ‘intimate’ becoming involved in terrorist planning, in order to discover if, when and how they will report their concerns. “We know from the recent inquest on the London Bridge attack that very few friends and relatives do share concerns and often when they do, it is very late in the day,” said Professor Thomas. “So we need to know much more about what will help and guide people to identify concerns about intimates and what will help them to report and share concerns. What are the blocks, the conduits or enablers? Internationally, we don’t know enough about that.” After the UK study, the key findings were that members of communities are “primarily motivated by care and concern for their intimate in considering reporting”. The two-year North American studies will reflect increasing concern about the rise of the Far Right and in the USA there will also be a scenario that deals with non-political mass violence, such as school shootings. When all the fieldwork has been completed, Professor Thomas will then be involved in the analysis of the data and the drawing up of conclusions and recommendations.
Spotlight HudCRES – Huddersfield Centre for Research in Education and Society The Centre’s research activities have a collaborative approach and are organised through the overarching ‘Huddersfield Centre for Research in Education and Society’ (HudCRES) and its three research groups: Policy; Professional Identities and Pedagogies. HudCRES holds regular public lectures and seminars, as do the research groups, with research engagement with policy-makers and practitioners in the region being a vital part of its Research Impact strategy.
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