RAN Rehabilitation The Diversification of VRWE as Challenges for Rehabilitation, online meeting 16-17 September 2020

Violent right-wing extremism (VRWE) today is not necessarily tied to some form of clearly organised movement or organisation anymore. Instead, much of it is now characterised by increasing fragmentation of scenes and movements and a diversification of the underlying ideological fragments — a development furthered by the social media-fuelled globalisation of VRWE.

This diversification entails a number of challenges for rehabilitation work conducted in the scope of probation and/or exit support. Besides the fact that many of these new developments and the related challenges could potentially be covered by updating and adapting existing programmes, two main challenges remain:

1. The target groups for VRWE rehabilitation increasingly exist of older people, in contrast to the past focus on young adults. New programmes need to be designed taking into consideration the needs and resources of this additional target group.
2. An increasing number of these people come from financially and socially stable backgrounds, which negatively influences their motivation to participate in rehabilitation programmes.