Police forces have a crucial role to play in facilitating a preventative multi/inter-agency approach at the local or regional level. They often know the community very well and can be encouraged to optimise their engagement with it.
RAN POL seeks to identify a more effective police approach which is flexible enough to be shared among many police forces in the EU Member States. This will require peer review of police approaches that work efficiently, identifying successful training opportunities, understanding the role of social media, providing guidelines for trust-based relationships with communities and families, and, finally, optimising cooperation between specialised branches and local community police.
Videos
Many EU countries will be increasingly confronted with prisoners convicted of terrorist offences being released from prison. Although these are not the first terrorist offenders to leave prison within the EU, the current challenge is considerable due to the scale of recent extremist activities: Foreign Terrorist Fighters who left for Syria (or attempted to do so), recruitment and home-grown terrorism based on different ideologies.
Also, more acts constitute a crime due to widening anti-terrorist laws. The potential violent and extremist threat this group may pose calls for action. The return of this group to society poses another challenge. This group needs to work on their return to society.
Just as important is preparing the receiving community for their return. Without society’s acceptance and support, rehabilitation of the released prisoner will be significantly more complex.
Meet Nour, our case study.
Police, prison and probation services are known as the Triple-P. All three work in tandem when dealing with radicalised and terrorist offenders before, during and after imprisonment.
Coordination between police, prison and probation services is paramount. Especially today when Member States are dealing with an increasing number of offenders being released from prison after serving sentences for terrorism-related crimes.
There are also detainees imprisoned for non-terrorist offences who might become radicalised in prison and then released.
The RAN Policy and Practice event in Paris on 22 November 2018 focused on how to enhance cooperation frameworks within, between and beyond the triple-P organisations to deal effectively with radicalised and terrorist offenders.
Podcasts
Antje Götz-Bungarten is a Psychologist at the Bavarian Criminal State Police Office (Germany).
Antje took part in the Policy & Practice meeting ‘A mental health approach to understanding and preventing violent extremism’.
Papers
Following RAN activities and Working Group meetings, an ex-post paper highlights lessons learned, insights and follow-up initiatives.
- RAN POL Police role and contribution in the holistic, multi-agency case diagnosis of at-risk individuals, groups and neighbourhoods, Rome 31 October and 1 November 2022
- RAN POL The challenges of anti-authorities extremism for police, Copenhagen 23-24 June 2022
- RAN POL Preventing and countering radicalisation of police, military and prison staff, online meeting 23-24 March 2022 (also available in French and German)
- RAN POL Workshop for in-depth case diagnosis, online meeting 16-17 December 2021 (also available in French and German)
- RAN POL Local Training Programmes in P/CVE, online meeting 24-25 November 2021
- RAN POL Community police and the online dimension, online meeting 05 July 2021 (also available in French and German)
- RAN Small Scale Meeting Radicalised police, military and prison staff, online meeting 16 December 2020 (also available in French and German)
- RAN POL Lone Actors, Police and P/CVE, online meeting 29-30 September 2020 (also available in French and German)
- RAN event Conclusions Day-to-day challenges of violent right-wing extremism for police and possible responses, online event 19-20 May 2020 (also available in French and German)
- RAN H&SC-POL Conclusion Help the Helper ‒ Safeguarding the well-being of mental health and social care practitioners, online meeting 25-26 March 2020 (also available in French and German)
- Lessons from crime prevention in preventing violent extremism by police, January 2020 (also available in French and German)
- RAN POL Legislation, training and other options for overcoming barriers to information sharing, Athens 28-29 November 2019 (also available in French and German)
- Bremen Model Law, 2019
- RAN POL What role do police play in the resocialisation & risk management of released former terrorist offenders? Marseille 08-09 May 2019
- RAN POL and RAN C&N Current and future narratives and strategies of far-right and Islamist extremism, Stockholm 04-05 April 2019 (also available in French and German)
- RAN POL Joining Forces: Dissemination, Implementation and Evaluation, Budapest 24-25 January 2019 (also available in French and German)
- RAN Policy & Practice Dealing with violent extremis and terrorist offenders, Paris December 2018 (also available in French and German)
- RAN POL and RAN P&P Triple P: Coordination and collaboration between police, prison and probation services in dealing with violent extremist and terrorist offenders, Prague 20-21 September 2018
- RAN POL Lessons from crime prevention, Dresden 12-13 June 2018
- RAN POL Police prevention and countering of far-right and far-left extremism, Rome 12-13 April 2018
- RAN POL The role of police online in PVE and CVE, Oslo 01-02 March 2018 (also available in French and German)
- RAN POL How to foster closer engagement with families and family workers, and why, Lisbon 12-13 October 2017 (also available in French and German)
- RAN EDU and RAN POL meeting on Polarisation Management, Stockholm 10-11 May 2017
- RAN POL The role of police officers in dealing with jihadist returnees, Düsseldorf 30-31 March 2017 (also available in: Albanian | Macedonian | Serbian.)
- RAN POL Points of Contact, Düsseldorf 29 March 2017
- RAN POL The role for police officers in multi-agency working and information sharing, Utrecht 21 December 2016
- Joint meeting RAN POL & RAN LOCAL Who is in charge?, Berlin 20-21 October 2016
- Training programmes for Europe’s police officers, September 2016 (also available in: Albanian | Macedonian | Serbian.)
- Preparing RAN POL's Guide on Training Programmes for police officers in Europe, Athens, 14-15 June 2016
- RAN POL Successful and effective engaging with communities, Oslo 06-07 April 2016
- RAN POL kick-off meeting, November 2015
Contact

Working Group leaders:
- Marzena Koradaczuk-Was, Poland
- Luc van der Taelen, Belgium
For the Working Groups contact points, please see the contacts page