Transcripts For CSPAN U.S. Institute Of Peace On Citizens Radicalization 20240714

Good morning, everyone. Hi, welcome. My name is leanne. I am the director of our countering organization at the institute of peace. For those that are new, we were founded by members of congress who were veterans of world war ii. They had returned from the battlefield convinced that the u. S. Needed greater capacities to wage peace as effectively as we wage war. It was a bipartisan effort drawing broad support from both parties, and in 1984, president reagan signed into law the United States institute of peace. An independent, nonpartisan, National Institute charged with the mission of preventing, mitigating, and resolving violent conflict abroad. We fulfill that mission by linking training and analysis, research and policy, and by working with local partners on the ground in conflict zones around the world. We have offices in iraq and afghanistan, pakistan, tunisia, just to name a few, and when it comes to violent extremism, we know that significant knowledge gaps still exist and they continue to pose obstacles. Usip is proud to host the resolve network which stands for researching solution to violent extremism. It is a Global Consortium of researchers and Research Organizations committed to more andr and empiricism understanding violent extremism and the sources of resilience. We have seen through our work and through research that the rise, spread, and evolution of violent extremism is one of the most challenging issues we face today, especially as it interacts with existing conflict, or create new ones, or further damage is already fragile contacts. Violent extremism is on minds todays following the attacks in el paso and dayton. I am still at a loss for words for the victims and what they are feeling right now. The newly empty side of the bed and the people rereading Text Messages over and over again. People in hospitals right now asking why did i live and why did others die . This weekend, more families and friends were added to the list of the forever injured, forever rred, forever harmed from by violence. This is a type of grief and the type of violence that exists in way too many countries around the world today. In fact, a task force on extremism in fragile states, worldwide, attacks have increased fivefold since the year 2001. And extremist groups have spread to 19 out of 45 countries in the middle east and the horn of africa. Sowing chaos and undermining already challenging circumstances. Here, at an institute committed to the notion that peace is possible, we want to help uncover new ways to do better at addressing some of the most Wicked Problems surrounding violent extremism. Today, we are tackling the problem how governments and communities are grappling with what to do with their citizens who travel to the socalled Islamic State and other conflicts and they return home. When they return home. With the territorial caliphate extinguished, more than 100 countries could face the task of not only reintegrating their citizens, perhaps 10,000 in tens of thousands in total, but also preparing their communities for a future with living with people nextdoor. Some who were part of these Violent Extremist Groups will face trial, and some will face incarceration, but not all. Some will eventually be released from prison, and many others will reintegrate directly back into committees. Into communities. So local communities need to be prepared, and society has a Public Safety imperative to pursue rehabilitation and reconciliation. People need processes to enable them to abandon their violent attitudes and behaviors, but communities also need avenues to enable social cohesion and to avoid further violence, ravens, and reradicalization. Yet, we lack the language in our Public Discourse to even talk about people or disengaging from violent extremism. As far as most of us are concerned, once a terrorist, forever a terrorist, and while the radicalization is a very complex process, there are many, many different paths to violent extremism. Inherently, it is social in nature, so disengagement needs to address social factors to not only help someone to disengage from their violent attitudes, but also rebuild the bonds between that person in society that person and society and generate a new sense of belonging. Currently, we scholars, committee members, can be unintentionally using language that underscores trauma, anger, and fear. We reinforce a persons identity as a terrorist or a fighter, and it may contribute to a self fulfilling prophecy. Luckily, for those of us who study violence and conflict, we are not the first discipline to work with highly stigmatized populations. In Public Health and criminal justice, and social work, in social work, practitioners have learned to leverage language as a tool to shape attitudes and behaviors, to reduce the burden of stigma, and to ease open spaces for engagement. And in these spaces, communities can be presented with opportunities for social learning and rehumanization and reconciliation. Let me be clear, i am not pollyanish about the real violent risk that violent extremists groups pose, and this conversation does not take away the need for accountability for accountability mechanisms for those who have committed atrocities and other crimes or enabled others to do so. This is not about forgiveness, absolution, or absolution. But once justice meet up with sentences, prison time has been served, or those who did not commit crimes were never charged, this need to call a spade a spade must grapple with the other reality of how we enable communities, new to the front lines, to get reintegration and reconciliation right, because all of our safety and security depends on it. This is a tall order. Which is why i am delighted today to be joined by four incredible experts who help us further unlock and unleash new avenues for adjusting this addressing this challenge. I will introduce each speaker individually. They will give up about a 15 minute or so presentation. I will then introduce the next speaker, and they will present. When everyone is finished, we will move to question and answers. We are also accepting questions live on twitter and from our overflow rooms here. Here at the institute of peace. With that, i will introduce our speakers and get the day going. It is my pleasure to introduce this doctor, a social psychologist with research on the dynamics of violent radicalization. His model drawing from human needs for respect and significance is outlined in his latest book from Oxford University press, the three pillars of radicalization needs narratives and networks. He will provide context on the social and psychological drivers, with attention on significance and respect. Thank you very much. Good morning to all. I am very honored and pleased to be here, and thanks for arranging and organizing this event. As you all know, radicalization that progresses to violent extremism has been and continues to be a major issue for nations around the world. Isis has lost its caliphate, but it is far from being defeated. Neither is al qaeda. Attackstinue to launch and attract followers and inspire individuals to join the all over the world. Hundreds of attacks in different parts of the plan. The question is, how do we understand the global threat, and what can we do about it . In todays talk, i would like to present a psychological perspective on this issue that i believe to be important. Many psychological phenomena, Many Political phenomena that have shaped history and the fate of nations are rooted in human psychology. Macrolevel phenomenon, such as poverty, poor education, or oppression occasionally contribute to radicalization. Sometimes, they matter less and sometimes they matter not at all. Why . Because they matter only when they are in circumstances that activate the psychological mechanism that promotes radicalization. Psychology is the basic discipline that addresses radicalization. And most importantly, if we understand these mechanisms, we cannot only understand it, but we can understand it and prevent radicalization the world over. Over the last decade, several decades actually, we have been carrying out research and various parts of the Globe Research in various parts of the over the last decade, several decades actually, we have been carrying out research and various parts of the Globe Research in various parts of the globe with hundreds, if not thousands of terrorists in jails and other locations, and on the basis of that empirical work, we have developed an integrity model, a model that on the one hand, capitalizes on important insights about extending social sciences, and that model integrating the sense of showing how diverse insights, combined into a process whereby radicalization and violent extremism take place. We suggest, in fact, three parameters of the process are critical. They had been emphasized singly by different models. We combine them together, and the three parameters are individuals motivation, the narrative that tells the individuals how to satisfy their motivations, and the network that validates the narrative and dispenses rewards for those who serve their needs in terms of violent extremism. Let me say a few words about these three. The need is critical. After all, radicalization is located by the individual. It is an individual who decides who will wear a suicide vest, pick up a weapon, and travel thousands of miles to join the fight and kill people wherever they might be. Therefore, a very important question was posed by a researcher is, what is the motivation . Why do they do that . What makes them take those risks, and make those sacrifices, and risk life and limb in order to join the fight . Researchers have provided an answer in terms of the list of different motivations. Or a motivational cocktail as they put it. For example, the perks of afterlife has been one motivation. They do it in order to enjoy the perks up afterlife. For they do it because of their adulation and commitment to their leader. Or they do it because they want to show that women can do it, or they do it because of vengeance. All of these motivations have their place and are important in specific cases, but i submit to you, underlining all the motivations is one universal need, and that is the need to matter and to be significant. To have selfrespect and respect from others and ones community. Now, this quest for significance, like with all motivations, isnt around at all times. How is this quest activated . The simple answer is it is activated when significance requires special value. Special value it is seen when special value loses its value. This can be ones own failures, lack of luck, ones own circumstances that they promote ones suffering. For example, palestinian women were accused of Extramarital Affairs or infertile, or disfigured by fire, so it could be a very personal thing, having nothing to do with international conflicts. But it can also be associate with ones social identity. When you are you militated when you are humiliated, you feel discrimination as your own thing, and then you are motivated to restore your significance. And that is humiliation, that is discrimination that provides an opportunity to become a hero, a martyr for the group that was discriminated against and who was humiliated and experienced the grievance. Now, the quest for significant is a universal human need. As an author put it, all of us have a sense of being a human and a martyr. A little babys the has a quest a little baby has a quest for attention because otherwise it would not survive. No one wants to feel disrespected. We acquire we require respect. We require that sense of significance. We require a sense of significance by living up to our values. It is the values that trickle down to the ones who serve them in land their significance who serve them and lend their significance. The narrative element ties violence to the values of significance, and shows how to obtain significance through violence. It tells you to gain significance, you have to join the fight. You have to kill other people. You have to be ready to take risks, sacrifice yourself, maybe die for the cause and that will give you significance. The narrative function is very important. We all create significant but we are not all terrorists. We serve other values, but if you are of the narrative that you have been assaulted, your group has been insulted, and you have to stand up for the group, join the fight, and protect the groups glory and significance, at this point, you become a violent extremist. And finally, the last is a network. Why the network . The network is important because we are social beings. The network of people who you respect in the group, define for us what is real and it is validating the narrative. Without the social network, we would not know that actually you have to fight. It is important to fight. The Network Tells you, yes, that is what you need to do. Agreement of the network validates, and beyond validation, it dispenses rewards. It admires people who serve the network through violence. It tells you, you know, you are a hero, you are a martyr, and you will be forever engraved in the collective memory of the group. You may go to paradise and so forth. What kind of network . What are we talking about . The network varies widely from approximate face to face networks. A bunch of guys that get inciteer and insight each other to action, all the way to virtual networks, networks on the internet that are particularly influential these days that people attend. So, it does not have to be in a physical presence of the network. You know that if you carry out a shooting, if you run your vehicle into people and kill them, and if you pick up a knife and kill enemies of the group, you will be appreciated, so it is kind of an implicit network. You do not have to be in physical presence of. Now, what is unique about our model . And how does that relate to radicalization . After all, social scientists social scientists have been studying violent extremism for many decades. And they have provided very important insight. I think what is important about our model is that it brings him and him these insights together into a unified function al portrayal of violent extremism. Some people in some models illuminate one part of the elephant, and our aspiration is to highlight the entire elephant and show how the different parts work together. Let me examine some very let me illustrate that by examining some very important contributions in this domain. Ted kearns famous book, while why men rebel discusses relative deprivation, the idea that your group has not received its just desserts and has been slighted, discriminated in comparison to others. This touches on the quest of significance. There are other ways of losing significance, as i mentioned, even sources of significance that are personallybased, and your personal failures. We have evidence that personal failure leaves people to embrace collective causes in the service of regaining their significance. Of course, he does not emphasize the essence of the network. He does identify an important element, but i think those other parameters are also important and we bring them together. People talk about macro factors, economies, and others, poverty, oppression, poor education, and they all came to the inclusion all came to the conclusion that neither of them promote. Violent extremism. It also addresses the loss of significance. If you are poor or oppressed, you dont feel very good. You feel very significant, like you dont matter, but not all violent extremism. It also addresses the loss of significance. If you are poor or oppressed, you dont feel very good. You feel very significant, like you dont matter, but not all poor or oppressed people become violent extremists. There are other ingredients to the mixture. You need to have the narrative and you have to have the social movement that supports the narrative in order for this to combine into this combusted mixture. My great colleague emphasize the issue of sacred values and devoted factors as an important ingredient in violent extremism. Sacred values are important because they allow people to serve them, and therefore, become significant. It comes to the individual and their motivation and the motivation for significance is served wonderfully if you sacrifice life, take risks, are ready to die, on order of sacred values, so sacred values are important in conjunction with the other elements. Mark made famous the issue of networks. Networks are important. They are important because they validate the narrative and they dispense rewards. They pronounce you a martyr or a hero. What about deradicalization . It is a reversal so the same three elements that promote radicalization, if you reverse them, they promote deradicalization. For example, the importance of narrative, the importance of counter messaging is of paramount significance. You have to counter the idea that islam is served by jihad. You have to promote the idea that there is a tolerance and that the audiology is actually misinterpretation of what the prophet intended. You have to have a counter narrative. We listen to reason. And narratives are what provide justification and the rationale for our actions. Narrative is important in deradicalization. Network is very important in deradicalization. We recently completed another book on the german neonazis, and those who led the movement, often left because they connected to another network. They meet somebody, a friend, a romantic relationship, that drove them back to the mainstream ways of thinking. So the networking important is very important in promoting deradicalization. And finally, reduction of the dominance of the quest of significance. It is an activation of other needs. A need for love, having a career, having a life, and nobody expresses better a former member of an organization claimed organization who explained why he wanted to deradicalize. You say to yourself the f word, i say to myself that time is running out. You may want to get married. You are going on 40 years old and you want to get married next year, and you say to yourself, well, at this stage of the game, to go picking at peace you have to [indiscernible] we have to live a bit. The other needs are activated. In the quest of significance is reduced. I mentioned empirical evidence, on which our theorizing has been based and time is too short and are probably already exceeded my time, but i would like to share with you a story of one Research Project on violent radicalization. You all know. You all know who they are. They raised a 30 year long [indiscernible] they were recognized as a terrorist organization and employed brutal tactics, highprofile assassinations, suicide bombings, child of child abductions used for human shields. They did a lot of damage. 100,000 victims, so william victim civilian victims over the course of 30 years, 50,000 fighters killed. It was one of the most vicious terrorist organizations in the history of this phenomenon. They had their air force, air tigers, their navy, their sea tigers. In 2009, more than 11,000 tigers surrendered after a bloody battle after thousands of civilians lost their life in 2009. The government at that point launched an effort to rehabilitate the surrender of the terrorists. And they were placed in facilities of different kinds. It was our great luck to get into those facilities. And carry out research on all extremists. The secretary of defense at that time and he was the architect of the demolition of the tamil tigers. The programs were adopted from the Saudi Program and other programs. That were launched, trying to distill the best elements of those programs. They had vocational, educational, cultural, family and Community Programs and the idea was to equip detainees to link up with new probabilities. After release. These are some pictures of the program. In terms of our framework, the need was to do with respect and dignity. They were accorded respectful treated treatment. They were not referred to as detainees or terrorists. They were called beneficiaries. This was adapted from the Saudi Program. The narrative was on the ineffectiveness of war and emphasize the coexistence and the reduce of family and Community Integration in order to embed them in social support of their changed attitudes. We were able to carry out controlled research of close to 500 that were exposed to fullfledged programmable education, social, and social education, social and other programs and we were able to use a controlled group. This was the minimal Treatment Group and we look at it as three ways of data, at sixmonth intervals. As you can see over time, the , full Treatment Group, there their radicalization decreased significantly over the minimal Treatment Group, which suggests that again, this particular program was effective. At the end of it, they were much less radicalized than when they entered. And what is interesting for all of us who are empirically minded their attitudes in the program , were related positively to a reduction of extremism and this was mediated by their feeling significant in the program, feeling respected feeling that , they mattered and that they felt cared for. This was immediately after the ending of the program on the left. We examine to extreme attitudes of the beneficiaries released from the program. And the number of programs they participated in was negatively related to extremism, and what this is mediated by interest. What is particularly interesting, there were less extreme [indiscernible] who were never apart of the organization. What is a bit more troubling is those of the tamil tigers who had the connections to the network of comment were more extreme than those who did not. This is a community where they were connected to a former member who were a bit more extreme. Than those who are not and also tamil tigers were connected to be morepora tended to extreme than those who had no connections to the diaspora. Sorry for being so long. Their other conclusions. I think these results offer a glimpse into the mechanism that support the model and suggest that the effectiveness of radicalization should take on an utilize a multipronged approach that empower detainees through the connections they make in society and remains on guard as to potential reradicalization. In the same way they can in the same way they can radicalize, they can deradicalize and reradicalize. The human mind is very malleable. Thank you very much. [applause] well as theory. I hope many others find they can learn even more about his work in his latest book. Please join thank you so much for a lot of information on empiric as well as theory. I hope many others find they can learn even more about his work and his latest book. His work in his latest book. Give me a warm welcome for shannon martinez, a former so white supremacist. She will give the importance of belonging and processed engagement in the rehabilitation process. Please join me in welcoming shannon. [applause] shannon thank you for having me. I dont have a slideshow. [laughter] shannon i wanted to take a moment to honor those who have died this week at the hands of people who took the idea that they were wrestling with and looking through, and chose to enact catastrophic violence as a an expression of those ideas. Their lives are in a changed, lives are lost. The timing for this event is pretty, pretty uncanny because we are currently engaged inside this country in a discussion about the language that we use. And whether or not that language holds power, and whether or not language influences behavior. Ii had a saying essentially how we pray is how we believe is how we live. I thought about this a lot over the years about the words that we use. Change our thoughts and how we think, and our thoughts then change how we live. In a perfect scenario from this moment, not a single human would radicalize into violence based ideology. In a perfect world, no one would take that trajectory. It still leaves a whole lot of people who are still currently in that movement, or whatever movement of choice, whatever expression of their violent space ideology. The best scenario for over this past week would be for the young men involved to have turned away from their ideologies before they commit it catastrophic acts of violence. But then, where do they go . What do we do with them . And how do we treat them afterwards . From the time i was 15 until just about the time i was 20, i was involved in a White Supremacy movement. I had a pretty dysfunctional childhood, but not overly abusive or anything like that. Pretty runofthemill 1980s white, middleclass dysfunction. At the age of 14, as i was doing what most 14yearold do in grappling with my identity and who i was in the world and who i chose to be, i felt pretty certain that mainstream culture was never really going to be a place where i could posit my identities and gravitated towards counterculture. The first place i really looked, one of my very first favorite books with the autobiography of malcolm x. I loved the power of the i the ideas and their revolutionary nature. I would end up going into the Punk Movement and shortly after 14, shortly before i turned 15, i went to a party where i was raped by two men. Because of my childhood, i knew i could not tell my parents. I knew they would have blamed me for lying with how i was going lying about where i was going. And that i was drinking, and they would be more angry about that then the fact i was sexually assaulted. I became consumed with rage. Over the course of six months. The angriest people in the periphery of the subculture where i existed were the White Supremacists skinheads. The rate i felt resonated deeply with the rage they felt. I spent more time with them and started listening to white power music. It broke down the barriers for me of using raciallychart language and introduced raciallycharged language and introduced the talking points of the movement into my vernacular. I began to read some of the literature that was a part of the movement. Over time, i would have a complete and utter physical echo chamber i lived in that was only about this moment from the time about this movement from the time i woke up to the time i passed out drunk at the end of the night. Very luckily, i ended up not having a place to go at one point. I was dating a young man who was in the army. He was also a white supremacist skinhead. He was in the army and was in training. And so i could not go live with him. At that point, i did not have anywhere else to go. Luckily for me, his mom, who was a single mom and had three younger sons, besides him, set i could go live with her. Said i could go live with her. I am pretty sure she knew what our ideology was. Even if she didnt, at the time, i looked very gruff, that my external appearance mirrored my internal experience of my life and i looked very angry, and carried myself with bravado and really did not take anyones shit. S word. Hey, cspan. [laughter] shannon she chose to see passes past this violent hate filled creature and chose instead to see if hurting and struggling young woman. She sat some parameters about trying to get a job, helping her with stuff around the house, and included me in all of the daytoday family activities. Taking the kids to cub scouts. Reading the chronicles of narnia to the boys at night. She created enough stability in my life that expanded the space around me so i could begin to shift and look and examine where i was and how i had gotten there. The ideology for me fell away quickly as i got space and stability. One of the other very crucial things i think she did for me is that she reconnected me with a sense of future. When you are living a hyperbaric life, there is no future. There might be a future in terms of the movement, or what you hope will come from your belief system, but in a personal sense, there was only right now, and a couple of minutes from now. She challenged me on ideas like, dont you want to go to college . Dont you want to make something with your life . Beyond just introducing those ideas, she connected me to the resources that i needed to make that happen. She did not just say, hey, dont you want to go to college . She said, lets find out information, addresses on the internet, lets find out how you can contact the schools. Lets take you to sit for your s. A. T. s. Here is a number two pencil in your hand, get in my car, i am driving you there. She didnt just introduce ideas to me. What i did not know while i spent these five years in the movement is that not only was i actively dehumanizing other people, but that in order to do that and maintain that viewpoint and way of living, i also had become deeply dehumanized. I was much less than human. I actively had to work at being seeing other human beings as not human in order to project all of the things and that i felt inside on to other people. I think one of the reasons this woman was so transformative in my life is because she initiated the process of rehumanizing me by choosing to first see me as a human with a broken and twisted sense that was being expressed in terrible ways. Rather than just as an ideologue, or someone who was not worth it. It is a hardsell to gather resources and to invest time and money into even discussions about reintegration of people from violent extremism. I had no idea that one of the main reactions in most of the Common Threads that are out there, would be a challenge to the very idea that people can fundamentally transform their lives. When we were talking about reintegration, it is paramount to examine whether or not you generally believe that people can transform. The objections are, either i never really believed that in the first place, or i still believe it now. Both of which are categorically untrue. It was an ideology that i would have died for. I hope i would die for. My belief system is utterly transformed. I believe in the coempowerment and genuine equity building of all human beings. That is the first focus we must have when we are talking about any sort of reintegration. Is it worth it . Are these resources really worth spending on these people who have chosen these terrible belief systems, and put forth heinous actions, a lot of them . I am a mom of seven children , ages almost 22 down to three years old. They are phenomenal human beings. They fight for equality and justice, equitybuilding in their lives on a daily basis. They will they have certainly transformed my world. They transformed the communities in which they are part on a daily basis, and i feel absolutely certain that they will have a piece of transforming the world. I think it is worth it to invest resources. We look at things from a Restorative Justice point of view, and instead of just seeing the bad actions of one person, which they are. I hold personally responsibility for the choices that i made and the things that i did. We talk about people falling down rabbit holes, sliding down pipelines, getting caught up in some way that releases them from personal responsibility, and i believe that to be a mistake in terminology. It is important that i accept responsibility because it is the only way to get towards making ongoing meaningful amends. I first have to say, i did this. I take responsibility, and i am sorry. How do i make amends . However, when we talk about that, i so resonated with what they said, we all have a basic need set beyond food, beyond food, shelter, clothing, and the way i see it, we all have a need to give love and be loved, to feel truly seen and truly heard, and to feel like we have a meaningful connection with something greater than ourselves. Every Single Person that i have ever worked with and helped disengage from violent extremism, this essential needset was broken, and that was compounded by a multitude of factors. From a Restorative Justice point of view, we have to see that bringing people back into the fold doesnt just help that individual, but it helps the entire network. You have to see that even though the actions are the responsibility of one person, that the ecosystem involves us all. Terrorists still have come from a family. They still have lived in communities. There are many layers of fracturing of those three basic needs that have led to their trajectory towards violence. When people leave and we are trying to reintegrate them back into society and more prosocial ways, it helps heal us all. It heals the broken fabric that was part of the trajectory inward. When we devote resources to healing those among us, we become stronger for it. I can leave my finger broken and i can still get through life probably with the use of my other fingers. How much stronger will my hand be if all of my digits are thriving . Jihadi bride. Lets talk about that for a second. I am a female. I am a female who became a violent white supremacist. There was a sense in which i found twisted sexual empowerment in my position inside a movement that is based on dehumanization and objectification of people perceived as weaker. Women fit into that category. Inside that belief system. On the outside, i wasnt super successful with boys and dating. Inside, i could go out with whoever i wanted. Because i was one of the few women. Because Sexual Assault was part of my trajectory inward. It felt very much like sexual empowerment. I didnt know that at the time. I was just doing what i was doing. There was more to it to that. I was an active participant in my own radicalization, i continued to amplify my willingness to use violence and take risks. I was not a passive agent who is simply arm candy of someone else in the movement. When we use words like jihadi bride, we remove the agency and that quest for significance that we just heard about. We say, yeah, but we are actually reinforcing a lot of the viewpoints that exist with that. We remove also the ability for someone to take full responsibility, come to terms with their actions, which is a crucial part of reintegrating into society. One last challenge in terms of the modern world, there are entire radicalized trajectories that exist nowhere except online. There are people who have stories of going into the movement and these thought spaces. When we talk about the movement in terms of the far right, all right, white nationalists, they it is a leaderless resistance. They are very overlapping ideologies. I believe we will see ideologies get more and more convoluted and enmeshed over the next several years. It will be harder to pinpoint a single ideology which looks like what we used to know it was. These trajectories dont exist anywhere outside the internet. There is no action taken. They have conversations in real life with other people where they bring their ideology there. The echo chamber is completely digital. This is a challenge for us to figure out how to navigate those spaces, and how do we address people and how do we treat their trajectories out of these violent space ideologies . They have not traveled across the world. It is still a multinational network because its the internet. Its everywhere. Do we treat them as though they are the same or different from People Living in the typical space . Do we offer the same sort of services . Do we prosecute them the same way . Do we hold them accountable the same way . I dont know that i have answers. I do think that there is a trend toward a virtual caliphate in conjunction with the physical space. Obviously, the most catastrophic thing is when the Digital World leaks out and becomes catastrophic violence like we violence in action like we have seen over and over again. With that, i will turn the microphone back over. All of you who have the influence to do so, whatever you are challenged about, helping former violent extremists, please remember my face. Please remember my story. Please remember the value that my life has now. If i had never been given that chance, i would never be able to be here and i would never be able to spend the rest of the breadth of my life doing as much good as i possibly can. Thank you. [applause] shannon, thank you so much. Thank you for reminding us of the empathy and compassion necessary to really accept the humanity in all of us. Thank you. Please allow me to introduce our next speaker, he is an expert on the way language affects cognition. He will talk about metaphors and how they shift perception and generate reduce stigma. Empathy and reduce stigma. Thank you so much. [applause] paul thank you for having me. If my slideshow pops up here, i am a psychologist of language. I am interested generally in the ways in which we use language to think about complex problems. Im going to start with an obvious and silly point. That is that solving big problems is really hard. How do we fight world hunger . How can we fix a broken educational system . How can we, what can we do about a crime epidemic . When does language marginalize people . These are big important questions. They are nuanced. There is no magic bullet solution to any of them. As a society, we are solving these kinds of problems. In my work, im interested in the metaphors as narratives that are embedded in these questions. They are embedded in the way we think about these problems. When we ask a question, were how do we fight world hunger, hungerpositioning world as an enemy in a war that we have to defeat. When we are fixing a broken Education System, we are implicitly or explicitly thinking about the Education System as a machine or a vehicle that we can just fix. When we talk about crime epidemic, we are talking about crime is a virus. When we talk about marginalizing people, we may be putting people on a page. Some people are in the middle, some people are on the outside. Language is an important window on the world. In particular, when we are talking about big picture issues, we have some direct experience with them. We see depictions of world hunger, we see depictions of crime. Those kinds of issues are not the same as a concept of a tree or a bird. We can go outside and see trees and birds and hear them and experience them directly. With these other sociopolitical issues, most of the information we get about those issues is through language, reading the newspaper, hearing other people talk about them. Language is a primary and critical source of information about the world. One way of thinking about the way language works is it describes the world. It describes our thoughts. Its a tool for communication. A followup question might be , does it shape the way we think about the world . Does it shape our thoughts . If so, how . Im going to talk through a few experiments quickly that illustrate the power of language to shape the way we see the world. Early work on this question was palmer in theeth 1970s. In this experiment, participants watched a video of a car crash. They were asked to estimate the speed of the cars. That got into the crash. They varied the verb they used to ask the question. One was asked about how fast was the car going when they smashed each other. Others were asked the same question but with the verb collided instead of smashed, or bumped into, or hit, or contacted. There is variability in the emotional valence and vividness of these verbs. There is a corresponding sort of variability in the speed estimates people gave. When a vivid verb like smashed is used, people gave a higher speed estimate. When a more neutral verb like contacted was used, people gave a lower speed estimate. All the participants watched the same video. At some level, the questions , the verbs were asking the same thing. Reflect on what you saw. Give us an estimate. There was a dramatic difference in the estimates people gave. In my own work, im interested in the power of metaphor to shape the way we think about complex problems. I present people with narratives like this where people are exposed to one of two different metaphors. Most of the information in this report is the same. There is a different frame it. A different medical or metaphorical frame. Participants will read Something Like crime is a virus or beast. Ravaging the city of addison. Five years ago, addison was in good shape with no obvious phone or abilities. In the citys Defense Systems have weakened and the city has succumbed to crime. Today, there are more than 55,000 criminal incidents a year, up by more than 10,000 per year. There is a worry that the city does not regain strength soon, even more Serious Problems may start to develop. So participants read one of the two versions of the word. Itd the beast version or the virus version, and then they are asked a simple question. In your opinion, what do they need to do to decrease crime . Weve done this with a free response format. Thats how we started doing the experiment. People would write things like Law Enforcement should be stricter and the Justice System harsher. Things like study the causes of crime and implement strategies to address the causes. When we were starting to do this work, we were looking through these responses. Two big categories emerged. Some people were emphasizing Enforcement Solutions and others were emphasizing social reform solutions. We would code the responses into these categories. We would look at and see if people who read the virus version of the report would give different responses than people who read the beast version. We found that they did. People who read that crime was a beast would tend to emphasize Enforcement Solutions to crime. Increase the police force. Lengthen prison sentences. People who read the virus version would give relatively more social reform solutions. On average. Fix the Education System. Create jobs for people. This was a dramatic effect. It was one word different in a crime report. That had mostly the same information across conditions was leading to a 20 point shift in the kinds of suggestions people were making. We also followed up using slightly different methods where people would evaluate policies as opposed to just responding freely. Maybe the metaphors would make something come to mind more easily in a free response format. It wasnt really making people think differently, maybe it wouldnt affect how people evaluate the policies we provided. We would provide some policies that were enforcement oriented and some that were reform oriented. People would read the same report, either the virus version or the beast version. They would pick one of these as their preferred method for solving crime. Using this multiplechoice format, evaluating actual policies, we saw the same effect. The first two were from the free response format. It is showing the proportion of responses. So people who read the beast version of the report are more enforcement oriented. People who read the virus version are more reform oriented. Those are the only two categories we were coding. We are seeing this effect using a variety of different methods. Another line of work that is related that i want to talk about briefly and i will unpack some of the cognitive mechanisms that i think that our at play, some work on obesity and looking at narratives for obesity. In the context of obesity, i will use the term narrative rather than metaphor. Although i think they are very similar. We can talk about the similarities and differences. There is a variety of popular salient narratives about the causes of obesity. Some focus on the individual and limitations of the individual. Talking about being overweight has been a failure of selfregulation. At the other end of the extreme, we talk about how the environment can contribute to obesity. Food deserts, the lack of support, the stigma associated with being overweight. Those factors can contribute to obesity. We have run some studies that were similar in design to the crime studies, where people read a narrative about obesity and then make some judgments. In this study, one judgment people made was about blame, who deserves the blame for obesity . We had people answer questions that were attached to individual blame and environmental blame. Societal blame. Some participants read the thin narrative that focused on the individual, others had a narrative that talked about sort of a medicalization of the problem. A disorder narrative was similar to that one. At the other extreme was the environmental narrative. And what we see in this plot is after reading the narrative that emphasizes personal failure, people are happy to assign a lot of blame to an individual for being overweight and they dont think the environment plays a big role. At the other end of the extreme, people who read about some of the societal and environmental causes of obesity are showing the opposite pattern. They are happy to attribute blame to the environment and are much more forgiving to an individual. In this study, we asked people about their support for Public Policy designed to reduce the prevalence of obesity. We looked at policies that were more protective. So education campaigns, treatment programs, as well as policies that were more punitive. So allowing insurers to charge higher premiums for people who were overweight. What we find is, this measure of blame, how people think about who deserves blame for the problem, tracks almost perfectly onto how they are thinking about these treatment programs. Sorry, the graph is tricky to see. What it basically says is the more that we blame an individual for being overweight, the more we support punitive policies and the more that we recognize the environmental factors that contribute to obesity, the more we support protective policies. There is a growing stock of evidence, lots of experiments are showing the power of language to shape the way we see the world. One very positive line of work in my opinion is work by carol black showing talking about intelligence is something that is malleable, something that can grow and can really change students thinking about education and the role of hard work and practice in education. There are a lot of issues, the addiction, some of the problems i talked about in the context of obesity also apply to addiction. It is a stigmatized health issue. Talking about it as a disease has a profound effect on the way people think about addiction. It reduces stigma. It encourages people to get help if they need it. Talking about cancer as an enemy in a war has become a topic that has garnered a lot of Research Interest recently. There are tradeoffs associated with the metaphor. On the one hand, it seems to be very effective at raising money and grabbing our attention. Thats important. Its a very emotionally salient metaphor. War is a salient, attention grabbing topic. As susan sontag talked about in her book, this is supported by research, it can lead people leave people with cancer feeling marginalized. If cancer is an enemy in a war and the doctor is fighting the war, the person with cancer is a battlefield and nobody really wants to be a battlefield. The last experiment is a little bit raw. I wont go into it into much in too much detail. Talking about immigration as a contamination in the nations body has negative effects on how we view immigration. That has become a pretty prevalent framing recently. So, language shapes what we see. Its not just a tool for describing reality. Its also a tool for thinking and it affects the way we think. How does language shape perception . Thats the main focus of my lab. I will talk about a few mechanisms here. Metaphors, narratives, stereotypes, a big part of their function is that they ground the novel in familiar terms. And this is the process of categorization. If i see an animal in the world and somebody tells me, maybe i have never seen it before and it looks new and somebody tells me its a bird, i can make a variety of inferences about what that animal can do. Metaphors and stereotypes and narratives are culturally salient, familiar abstractions like bird categories or tree categories in some sense. They help us simplify and understand complexity. When we talk about crime as a beast or a virus, we are leveraging what we know about how to solve comparatively simple problems for the purpose of thinking about more complex ones. A beast problem is fairly straightforward. If a lion escapes from the zoo and it is terrorizing the city, we need to capture and contain it. If we have a crime epidemic in the community, we are not going to capture and contain that crime epidemic. We need to diagnose and treat that problem. There is structure to these metaphors and narratives. When we use them to talk about novel situations, complex sociopolitical issues, we are leveraging that structure. One of the functions of language is to ground novel experiences in familiar terms. Another is that language guides our attention. It shapes what we see. It shapes the process of making meaning. In this description of the crime problem that i started with, there is a lot of ambiguous phrases. We are talking about how addison didnt have any obvious polar abilities and how in the past five years, the citys Defense Systems have weakened. Those phrases are not necessarily calling out anything in particular. They are kind of vague. So what do they really mean . What does it mean . What makes a city vulnerable to crime . What does it mean to say the Defense System is weakened . What we are finding is that it really depends on the context in which they are used. When a beast metaphor starts this paragraph, people call to mind the police force and criminal justice. Thats what it means to make a city vulnerable to crime. A bad criminal Justice System, a weak police force. If people just read a virus metaphor, the ambiguity in the phrases is resolved differently. People are thinking about poverty, infrastructure, they are thinking about education. So the way we are talking about problems is having a direct influence on the problems. But its also shaping how we seek out other information and how we interpret other parts of the world. How we resolve that ambiguity. In a followup experiment, one of the ways we tested that particular interpretation is by moving the metaphor frame from the beginning of the report to the end. In that situation, we dont get any metaphor framing effect. When the metaphors are at the beginning of the report, we see people who read the crime as a beast are more enforcement oriented. But when those phrases are presented at the end, there is no difference. When people have already resolved these ambiguities without the help of metaphoric labels priming them to think one way or another, the metaphors presented at the end are not reshaping or reconfiguring those mental representations. So, language guides our attention. Language also evokes emotion. Loftus and palmers work illustrates that nicely. The verb smashed is much more emotionally salient than the word contacted. That leads people to give higher speed estimates. The last point i want to make about how language shapes the way we think is that the process is often unconscious. Both in the production side and on the comprehension side. In the studies we conducted on crime, in some versions we would ask people afterwards to identify the part of the report that was most influential in their subsequent judgment. Underline the part of the report that led you to give your suggestion. People would typically identify numeric information. They thought they were being really objective. Only about 5 of participants would identify the metaphor as having any influence on the way they were thinking. It wasnt a particularly salient feature of the report. In followup studies, we would ask a more targeted question. We would ask people at the end of the study if they could remember which metaphor they got. About half could remember, and about half didnt. Then we looked at whether we saw these framing effects among both groups. So we might expect to see the framing effect on everybody who remembered the metaphor and may and maybe they are using the metaphor actively to think about these problems. But if people forgot the metaphor, its unlikely they were actively using it to think about the problems. We asked those questions one minute later. What we find is the metaphor framing effect among both groups, people who remember the metaphor are showing the effect of the metaphor and people who dont are also showing the effect of the metaphor. So at least in some circumstances, we feel like we have pretty good evidence that people are not aware of the influence of language on the way they are thinking. What about the capacity for language to stigmatize and build compassion . At a cognitive level, stigma communication creates simple categories, us versus them. It assigns blame to them. It evokes negative emotions, disgust, anger, fear. And it has real effects on people. It generates negative attitudes. It isolates the groups and individuals who are stigmatized. On the other end of the spectrum, empathic communication at a cognitive level typically situates a problem in a broader, more complex ecosystem. It evokes more neutral or positive associations. It engenders compassionate attitudes, connecting individuals and groups. To conclude, language is a window into the world. It is our primary source of information about lots of really important sociopolitical problems. It shapes what we see. Its not just the tool for describing what we are thinking. It actually meddles in the thinking and perception process and it does this by grounding novelty in familiar terms, guiding our attention and activating emotion, often unconsciously. Which highlights the stigmatizing and empathic potential of language. Thank you. [applause] now we will all watch what we are saying. We know the power of language. Thank you so much, paul. Our final speaker is a sociologist who has studied reconciliation in postgenocide rwanda. She will provide an applied example in the context of postgenocide and the role language has played in reconciliation and justice. Please join me in welcoming holly. [applause] holly good morning. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for coordinating this fantastic event. As im sure you are aware, in the 1994 genocide in rwanda, hundreds of thousands of civilians essentially took up arms against their neighbors. They grabbed machetes and clubs. They went out to hunt tutsi. Throughout this, over one Million People were killed and 250,000 people were raped in about two months. In the aftermath of this horrific genocide, the government of rwanda held people accountable by creating a localized Justice System. As you see in this photo, this meant that the incarceration rate soared in the aftermath of the genocide. Since then, people have steadily been returning home. Almost always, they returned to the same communities where they committed violence, and sometimes they return to the same village as their victims families. The Research Project i will be telling you about looks at the reentry and reintegration. As was mentioned, i was asked to talk about this as a case study. To contextualize it so you know the broader study, there are three core questions. As you see, how do we theorize reentry and reintegration in the context of genocide . Second, what obstacles do people convicted of genocide face as they Reenter Society . And lastly, but importantly, what are the individual, family, community and state level factors associated with successful reintegration . Today, i cant tell you about all of this. Instead, what i will do is this. I will start by telling you briefly about one of the core theories. One of many. I will talk afterwards about the other theoretical frameworks. Then i will tell you briefly about the context of rwanda and my methods. I have been following 200 people as they left prison and returned to their communities. I interviewed 100 rwandans about what they think about the reintegration and will be going back to rwanda in september to continue the interviews. I will talk about three Core Insights relevant to our discussion today, then i will conclude with broader implications in particular. I have notes because im going to try hard to stay to my 15minute limit. If i am speaking too fast, please raise your hand. I want to have time for q a. To begin, i am a sociologist and a criminologist. Criminologists have studied reentry and reintegration for decades. It is important to note political and biased crimes like genocide or terrorism are different than other crimes like homicide, rape or burglary. They have a lot in common. Because of this, i draw some theories from criminology. Criminologists look at reentry, its called labeling theory. Labeling theory essentially posits that labels matter. How we label ourselves, how others label us can influence not only our selfconcept and but actually our actions and how we interact in the world. Peoples identities and behaviors are influenced by the terms others use to describe and classify them. In our case, this is important because people who are labeled as deviants or terrorists often face new problems associated with this label. In societies that stigmatize or demonize individuals with these labels, these individuals face little chance at reentry within mainstream society. This is important because these individuals can turn to other communities that will accept them, sometimes violent subcultures. Importantly as we think about reentry and reintegration, we have to think both about how people label themselves and understand themselves and their actions, and how their communities label them as well. As i mentioned, im looking at this in the case of rwanda. I should mention this project is funded by the u. S. National science foundation. I have a separate grant that has basically enabled me to create a data set of all people tried for genocide in rwanda. About 200,000 people were found guilty of participating in the genocide, specifically Violent Crimes against people. About 6 of these individuals were women. You can see the figure here. Its fairly small. But it is the category one, category two, category three. The postgenocide court system essentially split crimes into categories. Categories one and two were Violent Crimes against people, like genocidal homicide. They were met with prison sentences or Community Service camps. Category three, these were crimes against property, looting during the genocide. These were not met with prison sentences, but with fines meant for reparations. For this project i focus specifically on people who were found guilty of category one and category two crimes. Im following 200 people as they leave prison. I first talked with them in prison in 2017 and i have been following them since their release. Of these 200 individuals, 180 were convicted of genocide. 20 were convicted of other crimes, more ordinary crimes like homicide after the genocide so i have a comparison group. Im not talking about them today but i am happy to talk about more of the comparisons to ring during the question and answer. 19 of these individuals are women, as women did participate in the genocide. Their sentences ranged from eight years to more than 25 years. They are reentering in urban and Rural Communities across rwanda. Very briefly, im talking with these individuals at set times. I talked with them before they left prison to learn about their prison experience, why they did what they did, how they expected reentry to go. Then ive been finding them at their homes, sometimes a neutral location if they dont want me coming to their homes, six months, one year and two years after their reintegration. Im currently at the oneyear mark in particular. As i mentioned at the outset im also talking with Community Members. When i began, i interviewed 100 people about what they thought about the people coming back to their neighborhoods. When i go back in september, we will talk to those people again. Its important to note there has been a little bit of attrition. Interestingly in the ordinary crimes division, three people have recidivated and are back in prison. None of the people who left are back in prison. Its an important point. What i would like to do with my remaining time is tell you about three Core Insights that are relevant to the discussion today. The first is how the people im talking about talk about themselves, how do they label themselves and how do they talk about the violence they commuted committed. The second is how do communities talk about the violence and the people who committed it. The third is how social factors shape the experiences of everyone in the study. To begin then with how people label themselves, if terms like reentry and reintegration are meaningful terms, they presumably are going to involve more than someone physically relocating, but some aspect of symbolic moral inclusion. When people return to society, this often means they have some type of rights of passage. Signifies assage change of stage or age or something important in someones life span. These are remarkably consistent across cultures worldwide. Events and rituals that mark some kind of transition. When you think about people who are reintegrating following violent extremism, you might think these are particularly important because they allow to someone to havoc clear break from their prior life and a clear reentry into their community. Indeed, this is what i have found for some individuals in rwanda. Some individuals have told me about how when they come home they were met with a family dinner. Community members came over and welcomed them back. Many people have purposefully been given space at meetings to talk about what they did, why, take responsibility, express forgiveness and remorse, and talk about how they look forward to moving on. Just a couple examples. One person talking about reentering said it was a joy. It was a celebratory moment, and people were happy and were very supportive. They were really supportive. This is a sign they were happy to see us back. Another person told me there are people i never expected to help to greet me, and they did it. Neighbors would come. Friends would give me small amounts of money. These rites of passage undoubtedly influenced how these individuals were talking about themselves. This is really important. One person shared this is an , amazing situation beyond comparison to be back. It kind of corrected my feelings that people hated me. Many people, time and again have , these narratives of redemption that drew a stark line between who they were during the genocide and prison and who they are today. You see many examples here. I became a citizen again. Many also said i became rwandan again. Im no longer a genocidaire. Or im a new person now. These are important. They point to a couple of important takeaways. The first is the importance of person first language. You see this here. Someone said i am no longer a genocidaire. Many people really struggled with that. It placed the action before the person. They said there is a separation between who they are and their actions. This is tremendously important. I heard this time and time again. It also aligns with research on the importance. We have it here in the u. S. A movement to talk about someone who committed a felony, dont talk about them as a felon. This matters and it mattered in how they see themselves. Many people said they strove to engage in Committee Activities that align themselves with how they saw themselves. For instance they went to , church, they went to meetings, they tried to show their neighbors that they were changed. They also tried to live up to how they were seeing themselves in that change. Its important because it signifies communities have to have space for people to have this type of interaction. It might be voting. To allow someone to be a member of society. It might be Community Service. Communities have to make space for people to be engaged. And living up to this positive prosocial view of themselves. Turning quickly to some of the community narratives, having how these individuals see themselves as influenced by how the community sees them. We talked already about blame and responsibility. Many of the people with whom ive spoken do take responsibility or their actions. For their actions. Something thats very important in rwanda is there is a complex structural view of what happened during the genocide. While people do take responsibility, many rwandans will tell me when they talk about why the genocide happened, they go back to colonialism and talk about how belgium created divisions between rwandan people. They talk about how local leaders created a structure in which the genocide was possible. They encourage people to participate. This is important. While it does not necessarily take away the blame, it does allow people to contextualize actions and allows the rwandan communities to understand why people did what they did. This is important because they dont just see individuals as bad people. They see them as good people who engaged in bad actions. They can try to understand that the actions were shaped by a confluence of factors. Some individual, some motivational, but some were shaped by these broader structural factors. This in turn humanized them as they came back. This aligns with the differentiation between the two types of shaming. There is stigma and there is reintegrative shaming. Reintegrative shaming is what we want to strive toward. It reaccepts someone as a member of the community. Disassociating someone from their actions and recognizing that good people can do terrible things, also based on a confluence of individual motivations and powerful social structure. This is important in the narrative we tell about violence, especially in communities that are accepting people and reintegrating people who engaged in violence. Finally, i will try to go briefly, this is not monolithic. Often we talk about reentry and reintegration as if everyone is the same. This is not the case. As a sociologist, its important to note your social location, your age or gender, this shakes shaped your experience. In rwanda, let me make two quick points examples. Status andconomic related power. As i talk about these experience people are having, they are being welcomed and having this great experience, its the people who are fairly poor during the genocide. These are people who are better able to lay claim to this narrative that there was a complex structure. And that the local leaders were encouraging them to participate. The people who were local leaders in the community do not benefit from this complex narrative. Theyre the ones that do not tell stories of people welcoming them. They are having a much worse experience reentering and reintegrating. Perhaps more importantly, is gender. The women in my study are much doing much worse than the men. Most of the men have spouses, most of the women dont. Most of the women are far worse off economically. I think this is tied to gendered ideas about who can and should engage in violence. In rwanda, just as here in most , places, there is the ideas it that men are the ones who can engage in violence. And that women who do it are evil or different. If youve heard of the book mothers, monsters, whores, i encourage you to check this book out. In this case, the women are seen as different, as evil or bad. They are not necessarily benefiting from some of these narratives within society. To wrap up and talk about a couple of takeaways, if you are going to take away something from these 15 minutes, firstperson first language. First, its tremendously important to talk about someone who engaged in terrorism rather than terrorist. In genocide. I heard this from the people who tell me that this hurts on a daily basis when someone still and they a perpetrator are trying to dissociate themselves from this. Passage andts of reintegration markers. We have a lot of markers when people leave society, when the integrate into a Violent Extremist Group or enter prison. That marks a transition. We also fail to have markers at the other side. Many of the people have told me that some of these small markers whether its a couple of friends , or they do something to help feel like there has been a transition. Structuraloint, the narrative of violence can humanize people is tremendously important. This doesnt take away their blame. It does situate their actions in a broader social structure. A structure that we know is very powerful and exerts a lot of influence on the individual. Finally, the experience will vary by location. Just a reminder as we think age reentryms that and reintegration, we have to be especially about how gender the , socioeconomic status, age, and ethnicity will shape how they view themselves in a variety of ways. We must keep this in mind as we design programs. With that, thank you so much. I look forward to the discussion. [applause] thank you so much to everyone. This is an incredibly content field hour and a half plus. We dont have much time for questions and answers as we had hoped. Im going to abdicate and asked the first one. And we will go to first three questions questions from the audience. Quickly identify yourself. Please limit it to a question if , its a comment, speak to them afterwards for commentary. We are looking forward to questions. [inaudible] your lanetside of here. Given what youve heard as we think about how we reintegrate people who committed crimes in this country into your part of ohio even, what have you heard today that you think would make the most sense guiding professional peace builders as we go forward . Thank you. Other questions . We are trying to take three. Yes . In terms of reintegration of programming, what would you say the biggest differences are in the programming from criminal justice reentry programs for gang members and other violent offenders. What is the biggest differences . From people coming from this context . Thank you. Is there a third . Ok. I want to acknowledge that i feel out of my lane. In terms of thinking about specific language in this domain about how people are integrated into society and the kind of language to use, i dont know if i have a specific question. Suggestion. A lot of my work points to a basic distinction between language and metaphor as a narrative that is simplifying. The beast example for crime is a simplifying metaphor. It makes things straightforward. Black and white. The solution is very clear. Systemic metaphors, metaphors that situate a broader problem in a context. One of the take away points from the work ive been doing related here is to think about that distinction, situate the context is critical. A couple of things. For the first question, i will probably just add that i think in the u. S. , this complex narrative of the structural factors of crime could be recognized in the u. S. As well. We know that people who engage in crime are not just acting on individual motivations. The communities matter, there are a host of factors that shape this. Often we dont talk about that. ,when we are talking about the individual and we just bring it back to the individual. Whether or not the government intended to do this, they did create this complex narrative, that didnt recognize it is this interplay and i think we can learn from that. For the differences for reintegration programming and rwanda versus those of gang members if i understood the question correctly a couple of , things. Im not an expert on reintegration here. So the differences in rwanda that i think have been striking, they are preparing the community for people to reenter. Often when we talk about reentering and reintegration and we study as criminologists, we mostly are focused on the individual, not a what the communitys of reentry and reintegration. In rwanda, because of the massive level of the reentry, we want to prepare Community Members that people will be coming home to talk about what drove them to do what they did. This is a large part about why this is in part working. I think this could be adopted in the u. S. I have heard several programs of done something similar. In terms of the research i know, this is not as much that looks at the community. One key difference in the u. S. , i did not highlight much in this talk was the importance of jobs. In rwanda, most individuals have a fairly agrarian lifestyle. We know that in the u. S. , when people leave prison or any situation that left them away from their community, having a job is important. Also to help them feel like they are a productive member of society. Programs in the u. S. That emphasize the importance of jobs are really important. In rwanda, it hasnt been as important because most are farmers on their own land. So i am focusing instead on the other factors. I would be remiss if i did not mention the importance of jobs and similar factors in the u. S. We will take two more. First . Thank you. I am from equal access international. I will forgo the common because of time. Do you have anybody who is , involved in this space, our Research Identifies critical significance belonging, all of these things, agency is a critical factor. If those are critical to engagement and i appreciate the framing around disengagement, and not deradicalization because they are different processes what examples do you , have of programs that work to reintegrate or rehabilitate, what we call off ramping individuals that are also asset based . Still tap into that need for significant agency. We are not stripping away those critical pieces that led them into this radicalization jointly journey that are potentially viable for social transformation. We are just taking a way the violence in the chosen path. We will take a couple more questions. Thank you. I am with the state department. One of the areas we talk about changing stigma is with government as we are trying to , reform, government actors Like Police Officers or military officials, trying to reverse his history as being seen as predation. I am curious if you have any guidance or suggestions for changing the stigma and the narrative . Somebody mentioned the use of counter messaging to take people on this radicalization process and steer them away from the path. Somebody mentioned what you do when there is no other place to go and you are already on that path. Can you speak to the strategies of counter messaging or behind putting people in a different direction . It will take that group and maybe take one more. The importance for the need for significant is a great in the process of deradicalization and in the example i know, the sri lanka example, the program equipped individuals with alternative means of significance through vocational training, through a variety of domains and endowed them with a wayicance and show them of integrating into society through professional activity that are alternatives to violence. That said, one must not underestimate the importance of violence as a primordial means of gaining significance. For example one individual who , was well integrated, he worked as a translator. Providing for his family. We asked him how do you feel now , that youve integrated . He said i feel ok, but i felt better as a fighter. There is something about dominance that pervades the evolutionary world. Animals do it. Little children do it. There is something about violence that requires efforts to conquer it through alternative means. These alternative means are professional activity and embracement by Community Integration. Its critical. If you are integrated in the community, this is likely to be effective. In america, it doesnt really exist. There are ngos out there doing an individual people out there doing the work of disengagement and reintegration. But we dont have an exit program in any real sense of the word. And in terms of counter withging, i did some work one of the Tech Companies some, trying to identify some counter messages that are out there. That might be effective. , ihink one of the things think it can be effective at , if youar points simplistically look at the trajectory of radicalization is a parabola that most of our efforts are focused on the vertex, which is actually what i believe to be the most difficult time to get somebody to disengage. Messaging to be important, it has to have legitimize their grievances that are already being felt by the people who are beginning to delve into their radicalization process. That is outrial there, particularly in terms of the extreme right wing white nationalists space does not legitimize the grievances that young white men in particular in this country are already feeling. It blows them off. So it misses completely. The other thing is that it helps to have a target demographic. I am are all just, middleaged white woman, i have no business being on tictoc. Countercontent that can be hypereffective because that is where young people are. Actors are utilizing these races extraordinarily effectively to spread their messaging. We have to make sure the content we are putting out is hitting the demographic where and how they are consuming the materials in the first place and it has to , and this is where counter messaging goes terribly wrong. It has to offer an alternative pathway. It can just be like being a nazi is bad. We all know that, most of us know that. But it does not give them anything else to do to deal with the grievances they have, to sense ofing and trinity and sense of agency they have. I think counter messaging can be very effective in particular points along the trajectory. But that it misses its mark overwhelmingly. The also want to add to counter messaging issue, counter messaging would not be effective if it is disjointed with general elements of radicalization. As shannon pointed out, if the counter messages are insulting the individuals, labeling them in a way that would the derogatotoryththat is going to miss the point. If the counter messaging is devoid from support of the network, it is going to miss the point area and counter messaging has to be integrated with the other elements, it has to address the need, identify alternative means of significance to him of fulfilling the basic motivation. It has to be validated by a group. If you address the counter messaging at the individual, where the Group Remains untouched, the individual will quickly revert to the old way of individuals are embedded in groups and their groups are systemic authorities for their belief and worldviews. It has to as the counter messaging has to be integrated with the whole panoply of factors that create radicalization. Otherwise, it is likely to be ineffective. Just one example, an attempt to deradicalized individuals through a very complex theological argument was ineffective because people who are reticles do not really care about the theological intricacies. They care about the needs of becoming heroes. And the narrative is a crutch, a rationalization for their motivation. It has to be as i pointed out, integrated, it has to address peoples motivation, it has to be validated. A couple of other things to add. On the counter messaging point, this is not my area, but i would like to briefly point out that the messages that people receive and the different types of violence we are talking about is quite different or can be quite different. In the case i talked about, genocide, the average age of someone who participated was 34, which is much older than a lot of the agency will see for people who do participate in violence extremism. This is important because an rwanda, participation in violence was framed as a way to stand up and to protect your families and their communities. This is a very different message that people might be getting in other circumstances, like paying attention to the types of messages that people are receiving because it will vary whether it is terrorism or genocide or a different type of crime. On the question about governments, i must admit i do not have a great answer, but i have a couple of thoughts. As i mentioned in rwanda, the local leaders who were part of the government are not having experiencesgration and this is in part because the dominant narrative of the violence does not talk about the structural factors that were at play for them, but laces the blame for the genocide on them. I do think that sociologists organizations can tell you bureaucratic structures are tremendously powerful so there is space to talk about the different structural factors that shape leaders actions or Police People or others engaged in the violence. The other thing in the case of or wanda, they made a concerted effort to involve police, to involve government in the justice process and many of the people i spoke with in the aftermath of genocide said they did not trust the government at first, but then he were able to engage with people at old more local level in their command he and this helps them to regain some of the trust in the government. Point, oneovernment of the things that struck me as important related to that is a leadership issue. If the leadership believes in the government and the power of the government to affect change and do good, youre not fighting such an uphill battle. It seems like there is a big uphill battle to fight right now. In terms of the language, i could certainly imagine there it if that emphasizes the relationship between the people andthe government government organizations and how government organizations are just people, representatives of a country. And emphasizing that could potentially break down these us versus them barriers. Going to take another round of questions but i recognize we are over time. I will take this opportunity to first of all thank my Incredible Team here starting with chris who brought it together seamlessly so thank you so much for all the hard work you put into this. Second, thanks to all of my incredible experts that have joined us today who have them parted incredible amounts of knowledge and information for and information for those of us who are working on violent extremism every single day. We have lessons and cross comparative studies we need to bring into beer bring into beer. Ear. Nto b we look forward to participating more in the future. Thank you. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] cspans washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up wednesday morning. Dr. Scott godley, former head of the fda on why he thinks the fda needs to take more action on cbd. The National Alliance on Mental Illness senior policy advisor about redburg talks flag laws and as part of our goldberg, hoston of the global dispatch is broadcast. Watch cspans washington journal live wednesday morning at 7 a. M. Eastern and watch podcast week all this week starting at 9 00 a. M. Eastern. On thursday, our guest is youast cohost of i tell what. And host of congressional dish. Bullard,james president of the Federal Reserve bank of st. Louis on Monetary Policy and the economy. He spoke at the National Economist Club Luncheon at the National Press club in washington, d. C. This is one hour