ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to summarize and extend our current understanding of terrorist deradicalization and rehabilitation efforts. It offers a critical distinction between deradicalization and disengagement – two processes that are often confounded but have substantially different drivers and implications. J. Horgan contends that psychological disengagement involves often-gradual changes in cognitions, emotions, or attitudes towards one’s involvement in terrorist activity. Like nearby Indonesia, the deradicalization programme in Singapore was largely predicated on news related to one of the most dangerous historical terrorist threats in the region – Jemaah Islamiyah. In the early 2010s, the Moroccan government pursued deradicalization and counter-radicalization through several benefits provided to those suspected of or arrested for terrorist offences, including early release, pardon, and general improvement of the state’s violation of human rights. While reducing the risk of terrorism is unequivocally a positive outcome, only through transparent data concerning the psychologies of programme participants can we effectively argue that deradicalization is possible, let alone being effectively practised.
