Chapter 8 – From Local to Global: Community-based Policing and National Security

s: Just as with the development of the PREVENT agenda in the context of community policing, there is a need to develop a range of approaches to identifying and countering online extremist views with credible voices. There is, therefore, a need to identify a common profile of self-radicalized individuals, and also the process of self-radicalization. This will help to detect and monitor vulnerable individuals and their network of associations, to prevent radicalization, to disrupt the self-radicalization process, and to provide an opportunity to de-radicalize individuals before they cause harm. The Internet has become a significant instrument for extremists and terrorists. They increasingly utilize online environments to inculcate their content and ideology and propaganda and recruit and widen their communication area. However, knowledge of such individuals and group activities is not mature. In particular, presenting short-term solutions, which are manual or semi-automatic, have not been effective. A mixed approach linking technical solutions with community based “policing” and countering of online radical content is needed.