Prevention of radicalization
Context
The Centre for Prevention of Radicalization Leading to Violence (CPRLV) comes as an innovative initiative of the City of Montreal, wishing to set up an organization dedicated specifically to preventing issues of violent radicalization and their expressions. This project is part of an effort aiming to appropriately respond to situations of radicalization and promote the strengthening of living together and to accompany individuals, their families or community members directly affected by these phenomena.
As a non-profit organization, the CPRLV enjoys a strategic and operational independence from the police and government institutions. This autonomy of action allows it to implement an upstream prevention work against radicalization leading to violence.
Structured around a multidisciplinary team, the CPRLV addresses the radicalization leading to violence as a whole and in all its forms: thus, it aims to promote the legitimacy of social action as a prevention tool. By making education and awareness a powerful engine that is the basis of its approach, the CPRLV wants to strengthen the resilience of the most vulnerable individuals and promote the vitality of living together.
Mission
The CPRLV’s mission is to serve as platform for listening to and supporting the families and individuals who are concerned by potential radicalization situations, and to prevent the worsening of the latter when they occur. It also acts as a Center of expertise in order to mark the steps leading to prevention and intervention in Quebec.
Implementation
To effectively prevent radicalization leading to violence, the CPRLV designs its objectives according to three main areas: research, intervention and training.
In terms of research, the Center’s research team aims to keep a lookout on the radicalization phenomenon leading to violence in order to document them, to explain and suggest tools for the intervention. As such, it supports the modules of prevention and intervention by continually informing them of the radicalization trends and developments in Quebec and at the international level. The Center finally conducts studies and produces analytical reports on various dimensions and trends associated to violent radicalization, as well as the strategies and best practices for prevention in this area.
In terms of prevention, the CPRLV’s training module and skills development is responsible for the creation and dissemination of awareness workshops and various training courses on radicalization to be used by front line workers (social workers, community school interveners, etc.) and institutional partners (police, correctional services, schools, professional associations, etc.) wishing to receive training on radicalization leading to violence, how it manifests itself and the most appropriate ways to answers to it.
In terms of intervention, the CPRLV supports all the practical situations of radicalization leading to violence through a psychosocial intervention team (social worker, psychotherapist, psychologist, youth worker). The CPRLV’s intervention strategies are individualized and take into account the psychosocial assessment specific to every radicalization situation. Through a concerted action with its partners in the field, the CPRLV workers provide social and emotional support and meet religious needs, most of them underlying radicalization situations.
Results
As an autonomous body, the CPRLV guarantees anonymity and confidentiality to citizens eager to share their concerns. This generates a large proportion of calls on the Centre’s assistance telephone line. For the period March 2015 to March 2016, there were more than 700 calls, of which 130 were deemed relevant and were forwarded to the Centre’s intervention team. From all calls received, 11 were transferred to the Police in accordance with the MOUs (they were judged as having early signs of impending violence). During the same period, the CPRLV conducted over one hundred presentations to community members and participated in the training of hundreds of frontline actors (police, social workers, schools, etc.) thus providing a better understanding of radicalization across Montreal and throughout Quebec.
See Awareness Campaign: "What if I was wrong?". Booklet.
