By Judy Korn and Thomas Mücke (CEOs, Violence Prevention Network)

Solingen, Mannheim, Magdeburg, Halle, Hanau – unfortunately, the list goes on. Everyone in Germany immediately knows what these city names mean. They mean suffering, despair, and death for many people, because these city names stand for terrorist, extremist attacks on people living in Germany. It is irrelevant which extremist ideology is used to commit an attack. In any case, a terrorist act feels like a threat to those directly affected, as well as to those who are only indirectly involved and learn about an attack through the media, for example. It is also irrelevant that the number of attacks per year fluctuates greatly, increasing in one year and decreasing again in the next. The perceived threat is always there, suggesting that terrorist acts are on the rise and thus the danger to life and limb is increasing. So, what can we do to counter both the perceived and the real threat of extremist violence?

We don’t give up on anyone

As one of the leading civil society organisations in the field of extremism prevention in Germany, which has been committed to the deradicalisation of extremist offenders for over two decades, we have a clear answer: prevention is needed to counter the threat. In addition to the security aspects associated with extremist attacks, prevention is the only sustainable solution. Prevention works at different stages and takes various forms. We refer to primary prevention when we work with workshops in schools or provide training for teachers, police, and prison staff. By providing young people with “basic immunisation” against attempts by extremist groups to recruit them, we protect them from drifting into extremist circles themselves. We sensitise professionals through training courses to recognise (young) people at risk in their environment so that they can offer them help. As soon as there are grounds for suspicion or people are already at high risk, secondary prevention comes into play. We can help people who are in the process of radicalisation to escape the spiral of radicalisation through targeted training. We refer to tertiary prevention when a crime has already been committed and the perpetrator is in custody, for example. This is where we step in to prevent further crimes from being committed in the future. We don’t give up on anyone.

Social diagnostics and risk assessment

In order to assess how far a person has progressed in the radicalisation process, we do not rely solely on our many years of practical experience. We also apply the scientific method of social diagnostics. In contrast to risk assessment, which security agencies use to estimate how much risk (e.g., of committing an attack) a person poses, social diagnostics analyses the socio-educational perspective of the distancing process. This involves accessing or developing social and emotional stabilisation resources that counteract violent behaviour and extremist thinking. These resources often also relate to a person’s mental health. Extremism prevention is at the interface between psychotherapeutic measures and deradicalisation measures, linking the two in a meaningful way.

More prevention = more democracy

Prevention is the most important tool we have to prevent extremist violence, protect our democracy, and make an effective contribution to identifying and addressing radicalised individuals at an early stage. At the same time, tertiary prevention in particular saves high follow-up costs and is therefore the method of choice, also from a budgetary point of view. What is needed from politicians is the courage to dare to do more (tertiary) prevention rather than less.

In view of the ongoing polarisation of society and the hostility towards the work of civil society organisations, cutting funding in this area sends the wrong signal. Right-wing extremism is one of the greatest threats to democracy, and we must work together to ensure that the ever-growing global crises do not further divide our community of values. Prevention can achieve a great deal – politicians can create the conditions necessary to enable prevention and foster social cohesion that counteracts further polarisation and thus extremist acts.