Various violent extremist risk assessment tools have been developed to support practitioner decision-making in case and risk formulation. Many of these tools are grounded in Structured Professional Judgement approaches. However, there remains a notable gap in the literature regarding how case and risk formulations are constructed in the context of violent extremism and limited insight into the types of individuals practitioners are tasked with assessing. This paper aims to address that gap by examining a series of case studies that illuminate the risk factors and contextual circumstances shaping individual trajectories into violent extremism. Through these case studies, we demonstrate how such information can inform assessments and calibrations of individual risk and future harm potential. Each case is used to explore the unique challenges it presents for assessment and formulation, as well as the implications for treatment and management. Broader lessons for the task of risk and case formulation are discussed. The five case studies presented are drawn from primary data within a broader sample of 15 radicalised male adults who underwent clinical assessments either in the community or while incarcerated in one Australian state.
In recent years, a growing body of literature has examined ongoing decolonisation efforts within contemporary African policing. However, scholarly attention to the distinct phases of decoloniality in policing has been limited. In employing a decolonial literature review approach, this article identifies and elucidates these phases, which involve: (i) recognising the presence of coloniality; (ii) balancing the perspectives, knowledge, practices, and discourses of the Global North and South; and (iii) providing strategies for epistemic decoloniality to replace the knowledge and perspectives of the Global North. The first aim acknowledges the dominance of Global North perspectives in African policing as a crucial step toward decoloniality. The second aim incorporates a hybrid policing model that combines knowledge from both the Global North and South by merging systems rooted in colonial legacies with Indigenous, community-based practices. Finally, epistemic reclaiming and reordering are proposed as strategies to replace Western perspectives with Indigenous viewpoints. These insights aim to guide African scholars and practitioners in transforming and reforming colonial policing structures, ideologies, and discourses. Additionally, the three-phase model of recognition, balancing, and replacement is valuable for encouraging policymakers to incorporate Indigenous knowledges in counterbalancing the dominant and ongoing effects of coloniality on African policing.
The work of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) is mysterious and obscure to those outside the service. There is little documentation of CSIS employees' work experiences in the extant literature, for good reason, as confidentiality-keeping is paramount to intelligence and security work. Employees of CSIS perform high-pressure, high-necessity work that is vital to the safety and national security of Canadians, despite their roles being essentially invisible to the public. Through semi-structured interviews conducted with CSIS employees (n = 38), we explored how CSIS work and public/employer perceptions shape their understandings of respect and recognition, or lack thereof and what implications these constructs are thought to have on staff mental health and well-being. We found participants felt, to varying and sometimes conflicting degrees, undervalued and unappreciated by CSIS and/or the public for their service and described the pains and deprivation of recognition for their efforts being redirected to other public safety professionals. Findings are discussed through a lens of diagnostic and prognostic 'frames' and situated alongside considerations aimed at improving employee mental health and well-being for CSIS employees, enhancing staff morale and demystifying how respect and recognition can be achieved in the intelligence sector.
Hostage-taking remains a persistent tactic in armed conflict and political violence, despite its unequivocal condemnation under international law. A recent and striking illustration is the mass abduction of around 250 individuals from Israel to Gaza on October 7, 2023. Captivity exposes individuals to prolonged regimes of control, coercion, abuse, and deprivation, rendering it one of the most extreme forms of trauma. This discussion article argues that, beyond threats to physical safety and freedom, captivity is structured to target captives' identity. We contend that the erosion of subjectivity, autonomy, and personhood constitutes a central mechanism of harm, shaping both the lived experience of captivity and post-release processes. To advance this argument, we conceptualise identity trauma through two interrelated mechanisms: stripping, referring to the removal of core identity markers, agency, humanity, and a sense of existence; and dismantling, capturing the cumulative fragmentation of the self through sustained maltreatment. Understanding these processes is critical for informing post-captivity care. Rebuilding after captivity is a relational and ecological endeavour, requiring coordinated and reliable engagement by multiple actors and systems. While survivors often demonstrate remarkable resilience, effective care must resist prescriptive narratives of reintegration and remain responsive to individual trajectories.
The detention of civilians by nation states in order to force concessions from their country of citizenship, commonly known as hostage diplomacy, presents a thorny and possibly intractable challenge to democratic governments which remain committed to preserving the international rules-based order. A form of triangular or indirect coercion, hostage diplomacy cases have increased in recent years in line with a weakening of both the ability and credibility of democratic states to advance coercive threats and assurances alike when faced with recalcitrant adversaries. This special issue integrates the perspectives of expert practitioners from the legal, policymaking, NGO and civil society sectors with more traditional academic scholarship on the issue of how to better understand, analyse and respond to state hostage-taking.
