When the police and intelligence agencies of the five nations of the Five Eyes intelligence community come together and release a report, it’s a significant event.
The report, released on December 6, is the first of its kind. It’s remarkable that it focuses on youth radicalisation, giving case studies of young teenagers being radicalised through involvement in online platforms.
As the Australian Federal Police (AFP) point out, every single one of the counter-terrorism cases in Australia this year have involved minors or very young adults. ASIO says about 20% of its priority counter-terrorism cases involve minors.
Over the past four years, the AFP and its police partners have conducted 35 counter-terrorism investigations involving minors, with the youngest child being just 12. Most have resulted in charges being laid. Two teenagers, aged 14 and 16, have been convicted.
Tragically, by the time a police investigation commences, it’s often difficult to avoid life-changing prosecution and legal action. So this report, involving the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, is a wake-up call. It asks for parents, teachers and others working with teenagers to pay attention to the signs of online radicalisation.
It’s a pity, to say the least, that the report doesn’t do a better job of spelling out these early warning signs (broken links and clumsy acronyms don’t help). But the intent is sincere and the need urgent.
How does Australia deal with this?
In Australia, community workers and police have long focused on three areas of observable behavioural change:
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changes in expressed ideology or belief
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changes in relationships, including forming new friendships and abruptly breaking up with old friends
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atypical changes in actions involving transgressive behaviour, such as getting into trouble at school or possibly with police.
When there is change occurring simultaneously across these domains, there’s a high likelihood of something going on in a young person’s life, such as grooming and radicalisation, which requires intervention.
Individually, these sorts of changes are common in the lives of teenagers. But all three at once, particularly when there is an escalating level of change over time, is a good indication that more attention needs to be taken.
Fortunately, Australia has good systems in place, particularly in the large states of Victoria and New South Wales, to receive help by reaching out through police but involving trained professionals like psychologists and youth workers.
Help can be given to, first of all, determine what might be going on, seeing what sort of problem there is, and, if need be, making early interventions.
With the help of the public these sorts of early interventions, even though they involve liaising with police, we can avoid engaging with the law-enforcement system and the laying of criminal charges.
From the case studies in the Five Eyes report, it’s clear it’s not just terrorist groups such as Islamic State that are the problem. Neo-Nazi and other far-right extremist groups pose a threat, as well extremist networks involving a seemingly strange mixture of religious or political or other beliefs.
How does radicalisation happen?
It’s important to understand that radicalisation is essentially a social process. It can involve peers coming together and exacerbating behaviour or egging each other on to more extreme actions.
But more often, it involves an adult preying on a minor and grooming them to do things for an organisation or cause that the young person has little idea about at the outset.
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This kind of exploitation often follows parallel lines to child sexual exploitation. From the perspective of a young teenager, they experience somebody showing interest in them, treating them as important and offering friendship. It’s primarily that need for friendship and acceptance that enables predatory actors to exploit young people.
In the report, it’s also clear that when a young person is going through a period of trauma, experiencing a loss, or some other disturbance, they are particularly vulnerable.
In some cases, a lonely child who is not neurotypical is preyed on and their social awkwardness exploited, with the false promise of friendship used to take them into a dark and harmful place.
For young people who have grown up online, social media can form part of the dangerous environment that exposes them to recruitment and radicalisation.
But it is not social media in itself, nor even extremist content, that causes the problem. It’s the relationships they form online.
Consequently, while there is a logic in limiting the access of young teenagers to social media, we need to be careful not to cut off lines of communication and drive them underground.
Read more:
We research online ‘misogynist radicalisation’. Here’s what parents of boys should know
The key priority for those involved in the lives of young people, whether parents or teachers, is to converse with them. Understand the gaming and social platforms young people are on, the people that they meet and the ideas they come across.
It also means adults can talk about children before they’re radicalised and too difficult to reach.
There are good resources available, including training and networks of early responders. For these to work, parents and friends need to pay attention and speak up when they have concerns.
