Systematic Review on the Outcomes of Primary and Secondary Prevention Programs in the Field of Violent Radicalization

Abstract

Since 2001, attacks attributed to extremist movements or “lone actors” have intensified and spread around the world, prompting governments to invest significant sums of money into preventing violent radicalization. Nonetheless, knowledge regarding best practices for prevention remains disparate, and the effectiveness of current practices is not clearly established. Consequently, we conducted a systematic review on the outcomes of primary and secondary prevention programs in the field of violent radicalization. Of the 11,836 documents generated, 33 studies published between 2009 and 2019 were eligible for inclusion as they comprised an empirical (quantitative or qualitative) evaluation of a prevention initiative using primary data. The majority of these studies evaluated programs targeting violent Islamist or “general” radicalization. Negative or iatrogenic effects mostly stemmed from programs aimed at specific ethnic or religious groups or focusing on surveillance and monitoring. Positive effects were noted in programs aimed at improving potential protective factors against violent radicalization. However, the reviewed studies had numerous limitations (i.e., weak experimental designs, small/biased samples, unclear definitions, incomplete methodological sections, and conflicts of interests) that hinder one’s confidence in their conclusions. Also, many studies lacked a logic model, failed to differentiate between intermediate and final outcomes, and often did not assess for negative outcomes. Encouragingly, however, some of the most methodologically sound studies contained results attesting to the effectiveness of improving protective factors against violent radicalization.

Keywords

• radicalization
• extremism
• violent
• systematic review
• prevention programs
• primary
• secondary
• guidelines