Introduction
Global governance meetings, such as G8 meetings, have a number of side conferences that represent important—and under reported—sites for criminal justice policy transfer. Contributing to scholarship examining how contemporary policing and security policies can travel across jurisdictional boundaries (Mcguire and King 2013; Melossi et al. Reference Melossi, Sozzo, Sparks, Melossi, Sozzo and Sparks2011), this article describes the efforts of a secretive G8 side-group known as the Roma-Lyon Group, which is an important site for policy cooperation on issues of criminal justice. Focusing on the role of Canadian participation in the Roma-Lyon project on prisoner radicalization, I describe how transnational security networks can function as venues for the circulation and replication of “best practices” from abroad.
Radicalization has become the primary focus of national security agencies in Canada (Canada 2012; Canada 2013). A growing body of literature has examined the expansion of radicalization and counter-radicalization programs (Neumann and Kleinmann Reference Neumann and Kleinmann2013; Monaghan Reference Monaghan2014; Sedgwick Reference Sedgwick2010), yet—despite high levels attention—very little is known about the changing dynamics of Canadian legal practices to address radicalization threats. Given the secretive nature of security governance practices, reforms within Canadian prisons are a unique site to examine policy transformations with this field of governance. As literature on radicalization has demonstrated, a key distinction animating these policy reforms stem from the role of religion, particularly Islam (Dawson Reference Dawson2009; Neumann Reference Neumann2013; Pantazis and Pemberton Reference Pantazis and Pemberton2011). In a penal setting, the centrality of Islam as a source of threat connects domestic correctional objectives of containment and rehabilitation into a global framework of governing threats associated with the “war on terror.” Cases of convicted terrorists in Canada are relatively new and, as I detail in this article, the Correctional Services of Canada (CSC) have looked abroad in order to acquire counter-radicalization “best practices” from states with more advanced policy programs. While not an exclusive source for policy distillation, an examination of the G8 Roma-Lyon Group is a noteworthy entity to explore how these policy transfers travel. Contributing to sociolegal debates on policy transfers in the context of the “war on terror,” this article demonstrates how the Roma-Lyon Group and its project on Islamic prison radicalization has functioned to circulate particular regimes of penal and security practices associated with discourses of Islamic radicalization into Canadian policy landscapes and the management practices of Correctional Services Canada.
The G8 Roma Lyon group is a practitioner-led network consisting of expert representatives from the G8/7 nations in areas of security, policing, and counter-terrorism. Since the G8—and its subgroups—have no secretariat and, given the secretive nature of a) security governance issues, and b) G8 meetings in general, there is very little information regarding the activities of the Roma-Lyon Group (with the exception of Scherrer Reference Scherrer2009; Scherrer and Dupont Reference Scherrer and Dupont2010). Notwithstanding, we do know that the central rationale for the group is to develop and distill “best practices” in the field of transnational organized crime and counter-terrorism. A central question addressed by this article is how practices around Islamic radicalization have proliferated between security actors at the transnational level, and how these knowledge systems are imported into domestic penal settings. Analyzing documents released under Canada’s Access to Information Act (ATIA), I detail the activities of Canadian experts within the Roma-Lyon Group and transformations to Canadian prison practices that are modeled along the “best practices” recommendations put forward through the Roma-Lyon Group. I detail these security governance practices in two stages: 1) detailing the G8 Roma-Lyon network itself, as a transnational group of experts who have advanced a particular set of “policy myths” (Hier and Walby Reference Hier and Walby2014) around radicalization; and 2) examining Canadian prisons reforms, and how these transnationally-driven rationalities are replicated in security/surveillance practices targeting Canadian prisoners, particularly Muslims.
Characterizing the Roma-Lyon Group as a venue for “norm-makers” such as the United States and Britain, and Canada as a “norm-taker,” I trace the movement of penal policies targeting Islamic radicalization from the transnational stage to the national level. The article begins by detailing the Roma-Lyon Group. I then explore the influence of radicalization discourses on the Roma-Lyon Group and the emergence of the project on prisoner radicalization and recruitment. Subsequently, the impact of the Roma-Lyon “best practices” recommendations on Canadian prisons is detailed. I conclude with a discussion of the relation between prisoner counter-radicalization practices and recent literature on criminal justice and security trends while offering some remarks on what prisoner radicalization policy transfers means for future socio-legal research.
Examining the Roma-Lyon Group
The Lyon Group was formed in 1995 as an expert network with a focus on the threat of transnational organized crime (Scherrer Reference Scherrer2009; see also: Bowling and Sheptycki Reference Bowling and Sheptycki2012, 34-38). Following the events of 11 September 2001, the Lyon Group began to work with the far more secretive Roma Group—a network of intelligence practitioners focused specifically on counter-terrorism—whose existence pre-9/11 was not publicly disclosed. Scherrer (2009, 116–19) has noted that Lyon Group participants believed the network “was running out of steam at the end of the 1990s” but collaborations with the Roma Group turned into an “extremely productive partnership.” Despite reservations around the co-mingling domains of transnational organized crime and terrorism (see Scherrer Reference Scherrer2009, 113–42), the merger of the groups was formalized in 2003 and, since that time, the group has been known simply as the Roma-Lyon Group.
The Roma-Lyon Group consists of country experts organized into six sub-groups: (1) Criminal and Legal Affairs; (2) Transportation Security; (3) Law Enforcement; (4) Migration Experts; (5) High Tech Crime; and (6) Counter Terrorism Practitioners. Group members meet three times per year, but as a common practice, members are in continuous communication throughout the year (Scherrer and Dupont Reference Scherrer and Dupont2010, 163). As a network driven by “securocrats” (Pawlak Reference Pawlak2009), the organizing principle of the group does not follow a negotiation model, but a consensus model where a group of experts—largely from justice departments, and policing or security agencies—could establish a working agenda. Fostering what Scherrer (2009, 78) calls the “cooperation imperative,” the Group functions effectively as a “think tank” (Scherrer Reference Scherrer2009, 64), encountering very little disagreement, with the objective of issuing non-binding recommendations for member countries based on agreed sets of “best practices” and policy principles.
Scherrer (Reference Scherrer2009) explains that fostering a “cooperation imperative” through recommendation lists has been an effective method for policy transfer. The Roma-Lyon Group authorizes these policy prescriptions as “ready-made kits” (Scherrer Reference Scherrer2009, 101), allowing experts to act in a “steering role” on international issues of crime and security within both the international realm and their respective domestic settings. G8 experts act as “idea entrepreneurs” (Sjöstedt Reference Sjöstedt2013; also Mueller Reference Mueller2006) who often produce criminological techniques that are seen as under-addressed by other multilateral forums. As Scherrer’s (Reference Scherrer2009) interviews with members of the Lyon Group have demonstrated, the process of cooperation has allowed for certain leading practitioners to legitimize practices that already existed in some polities while, at the same time, normalizing these practices by encouraging other countries to adopt them.
As a transnational network, the G8 has long been criticized as a venue for the advancement of dominant political-economic interests, particularly those of the United States but also those of the global North in general. As scholarship on policy transfer has noted, multilateral mechanisms—of which the G8 could (arguably) be the most powerful—often function to export the policy interests of the most powerful actors within those institutions (Dezalay and Garth Reference Dezalay and Garth2002; Mayeda Reference Mayeda, Forcese and LaViolette2008; Scherrer Reference Scherrer2009). In the realm of criminal justice policy transfer, the agenda of the Roma-Lyon (as well as of the G8 as a whole) has largely taken on the priorities of the US “war on terror” (Argomaniz Reference Argomaniz2009; Pawlaw 2009; Scherrer Reference Scherrer2009). As a notable site for an empirical analysis of the circulation of best practices associated with the “war on terror,” discourses of Islamic prison radicalization demonstrate a specific set of security measures taken against prisoners deemed at-risk or risky, and have resulted in a broad set of penal reforms in Canada.
Note on Method
Due to the fact that the G8 and the Roma-Lyon Group have no secretariat, there is little existing research on this issue. Even the G8’s unofficial secretariat—University of Toronto’s G8 Research ProjectFootnote 1—has only anecdotal mentions of the Roma-Lyon Group. Although there are significant barriers to using the ATIA as a data collection tool (Larson and Piché Reference Larsen and Piché2009; Larsen and Walby Reference Larsen and Walby2012), research on opaque institutions like the Roma-Lyon Group (and others) demonstrate how it can be used to access large volumes of textual data that would be otherwise archived away in the large bureaucracies of policing, security, and penal agencies.
Examining the transformations in penal practices in Canada is an aspect of a larger project on categories of extremism and radicalization within the criminal justice system (Monaghan Reference Monaghan2013; Monaghan Reference Monaghan2014). In regards to penal reforms that address Islamic radicalization, this article represents a preliminary examination of policy reforms that arise from Roma-Lyon group meetings and recommendations. Policy reforms detailed herein are not publicly disclosed or publicly available. CSC has no official public policy on counter-radicalization. Although the topic of Islamic radicals within the penal system has become more pronounced (particularly since the transfer case of Omar Khadr (see Khadr 2010), CSC has refused to comment publicly on counter-radicalization strategies (Bell 2012). Yet, there have been pronounced changes in the governance of Muslims within Canadian prisons, which have been amplified by an increase in convicted terrorists (now eighteen)Footnote 2 as well as racial tensions within Canadian prisons due to a rise in Muslim populations (which culminated most recently in a 2011 race riot at Joyceville federal prison).Footnote 3 The following discussion examines the policy transformations associated with the threat of Islam, while not necessarily attending to the affective states that arise from those policy reforms. In my concluding section, I highlight trends identified by other socio-legal scholarship on security governance that highlight potential impacts of preventative risk practices. However, a broader examination of transformations to the lived experiences of Muslims in Canadian penal settings will be explored during the second component of this research program, which includes interviews with current and former Muslim prisoners from Ontario, and has an expected completion time in 2016.
For this article, I use the ATIA to locate a broad range of textual data associated with Roma-Lyon meetings, including meeting minutes, financial forms, agendas, notes and briefings, memos, emails, PowerPoint presentations, and other internal documents from CSC and Public Safety Canada (PSC). I received approximately 900 pages of material, which have been coded for discussions of radicalization, penal policies, discussions of threats, coordination with allies and partners, as well as discussions of priorities and logistics. These documents have been supplemented by examination of public policies, news media coverage, and secondary research literature. Notwithstanding limitations of the ATIA for accessing classified materials, the discussion below highlights its utility as a data collection model for tracing policy transformations flows.
Criminal Justice Policy Transfer and Counter-Radicalization in Prisons
Policy transfer research spans many disciplinary fields. It has been described as a large and scattered body of research (Mcguire and King 2013). In particular, research on criminal justice policy transfer lacks coherence, with much of the research—especially security sector reform—focused on global North-South policy transfer (O’Connor and Brisson-Boivin Reference O’Connor and Brisson-Boivin2013; Macaulay Reference Macaulay2007; Samara Reference Samara2005). Policy transfer scholarship—such as studies on institutional isomorphism—tend to underline how reforms are shaped by powerful groups, institutions, and actors (DiMaggio and Powell Reference DiMaggio and Powell1983; Mcguire and King 2013; see also McCann Reference McCann2011). The scholarship is highly critical of the disjuncture between reform programs driven by powerful institutional actors and particular contexts where these proscribed policy reforms take shape (Eski Reference Eski2011; Messina Reference Messina2014; Sayigh Reference Sayigh2009). Isomorphic tendencies of mimicry and replication are discernible in North-South policy transfers where hegemonic relations are more explicit, but are also present in the policy transfers within and among allied states (Hier and Walby Reference Hier and Walby2014; Newburn Reference Newburn2002). Examining the role played by transnational networks is important for exploring how these criminal justice transfers take place and how allied states replicate and mimic criminal justice practices.
Discourses of radicalization have become a dominant trope in contemporary literature on fighting the “war on terror” (Githens-Mazer Reference Githens-Mazer2012; Hebert 2009; Lakhani Reference Lakhani2012; Neumann Reference Neumann2013; Sedgwick Reference Sedgwick2010). Although studies using nomenclature of “radicalization” have a long history in describing political opposition movements that engage in forms of armed resistance to the state, the theme of radicalization has found a new saliency post-9/11 with particular reference to Islam. Contemporary “radicalization studies” is an emerging (and relatively new) field of research that gained considerable traction in the mid-2000s (Dawson Reference Dawson2009) and has become a popular and flexible concept for governments and security agencies (Neumann Reference Neumann2013; see also Monaghan Reference Monaghan2014). By examining the work of the Roma-Lyon Group project on prisoner radicalization, I point to how policy norms around radicalization evolve within this transnational organizational field, circulate through transnational professional networks, then transfer into a member jurisdiction. With the case of penal practices in Canada, transformations related to “radical” prisoners represent a commonality in much of the policy transfer literature because of the disjuncture between the prescriptive agenda advanced by more powerful states, and the particular realities in the Canadian penal setting.
Discourses of Radicalization within the Roma-Lyon Group
Radicalization in prisons was first mentioned in a G8 public document in 2006, with a mention in the Chairman’s Summary that the Roma-Lyon project on terrorist radicalization and recruitment began in November 2005. G8 country experts met in Moscow in April 2006 to consider the issue of radicalization in prisons, with a view to developing a list of best practices from each member country (PSC 2012-0025). The idea of the best practices list would be to begin skill-sharing and develop a common approach to addressing the issue. A briefing note about the Roma-Lyon Group written to the Canadian Public Safety Minister says that the group pledged to “develop… [an] understanding of the processes and factors which lead to radicalization and recruitment [and to] develop strategies to counter those processes and factors, including formulating and sharing best practice[s] on the prevention of radicalization and recruitment in prisons” (PSC 2012-0025, 29). The generation of the best practices list was accomplished through the circulation of a questionnaire in January 2006. Although it is unclear who prepared the questionnaire, Canadian documents reveal that it was sent to all G8 member countries to “collect consolidated information on national correctional practices and policies regarding terrorist inmates including identification, affiliation, management, communication, monitoring, religious programming, and radicalization and recruitment” (CSC 2011-322, 8). At meetings focused exclusively on Islamic terrorist recruitment in prisons held in Berlin, Germany, on 16 April 2007, Roma-Lyon members were tasked with finalizing the best practices list and discussing “its possible implementation in national jurisdictions” (PSC 2012-00025, 34).
The meeting was chaired by Joyce K Conley, Senior Deputy Assistant Director, Federal Bureau of Prisons, US Department of Justice, Washington, DC. Although the full Roma-Lyon list of best practices is not public, documents from Canada’s federal prison authority, CSC, detail that the meeting was set according to the fifteen recommendations, addressing each recommendation over the course of the day.Footnote 4 Other records include the Canadian submission, which details Canadian efforts to address the fifteen areas of recommendation. These include: (1) Improve Inter-Country Partnerships Including Intelligence Sharing; (2) Provide Staff Training; (3) Develop Intra-Country Partnerships; (4) Develop Rigorous Inmate Monitoring Procedures; (5) Develop Cross-Cultural Expertise; (6) Avoid Inmate Led Religious Services; (7) Recruit Tolerant Faith Leaders; (8) Develop Programs and Procedures for Vulnerable Inmates; (9) Encourage Mainstream Religious and Community Support; (10) Establish Contractor/Volunteer Database; (11) Implement Robust Vetting and Screening of Volunteers; (12) Ensure Terrorist inmates are not assigned in Religious Services Areas/Work details; (13) Enhance Supervision of Religious Services; (14) Develop Standardized Sources for Purchase of Religious Materials; and (15) Coordinate the Transfer/Release of Inmates of Concern. As I discuss below, efforts have been taken in most of these areas.
Canada’s participation in the Roma-Lyon Group is directed by PSC. Given the topic of prison radicalization, PSC specifically requested the inclusion of a representative from the federal prison authority, CSC, to attend the meetings. A briefing note prepared for the Minister of Public Safety outlines why PSC would want to include an expert from the federal prison system as a member of the Canadian delegation:
Since the success of this initiative is dependent on the participation of experts, it is recommended that the Correctional Service Canada (CSC) be invited to attend. In light of our current role in the G8 Roma-Lyon Counter Terrorism Practitioners Groups, it would logically fall to us to extend such an invitation. Consultations with the CSC allowed us to identify Mr. Luciano Bentenuto, Acting Director of Intelligence at the CSC as an ideal candidate to attend the meeting. Mr. Bentenuto has a vast knowledge of the correctional system and is a known expert on the topic of radicalization in prisons. He has accepted to participate at the meeting, subject to the approval of his supervisor, the Senior Assistant Commissioner (PSC 2012-0025, 132).
In advance of the meetings, J. Scott Broughton, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister at PSC, Emergency Management and National Security Branch, wrote to CSC’s Ross Toller, Senior Assistant Commissioner for Correctional Operations and Programs, to formally request the participation of Luciano Bentenuto. Broughton writes:
You will note that the meeting organizers have specifically requested the participation of experts in the area of prison administration, terrorism radicalization and recruitment, and correctional law. I understand that Mr. Bentenuto, from your Intelligence Division, has the knowledge and expertise capable of adding exceptional value to the meeting (PSC 2012-0025, 133).
Bentenuto’s request for participation was granted. Records indicate that Bentuneto was also involved in the drafting of Canada’s submission on prison radicalization practices to the Roma-Lyon Group. As detailed below, preliminary plans to address radicalization in Canadian prisons were largely based on established practices targeting organized crime, which demonstrates a similar parallel to the G8 Roma-Lyon Group itself in the move from organized crime to counter-terrorism.
In large part because of Canada’s limited role in dealing with domestic terrorism, discourses of radicalization had very little presence in the textual records of security governance agencies. With the exception of Canada’s spy-agency CSIS, which began employing radicalization discourses in the early and mid 2000s (CSIS 2012-440), Canadian security agencies began to frame national security issues around discourses of radicalization in the late 2000s (see CACP 2008; Canada 2012; RCMP 2009; Senate 2011). The first mention of “radicalization” in CSC materials is a research document from 2009 (CSC 2009); yet even that mention is in reference to gangs in the United States. The first public mention of efforts to address radicalized offenders appears to be in the CSC 2011–2012 Departmental Performance Report (CSC 2012). Unlike Canadian security governance agencies, other countries adopted discourses of radicalization much earlier. Discourses of prisoner radicalization have also been almost exclusively driven by the United States (Hamm Reference Hamm2013; Hannah et al. Reference Hannah, Clutterbuck and Rubin2008; Sedgwick Reference Sedgwick2010); and the United Kingdom and some European countries have also employed discourses of radicalization to discuss internal national security threats (Awan Reference Awan2012; Dalgaard-Neilsen 2010).
While these countries have produced the discourses of radicalization, it is important to underline how venues like the G8 Roma-Lyon Group act as a venue for norm-making. Transnational networks are central to the establishment of governing norms and the flow of information-knowledge, as well as political leveraging for domestic self-interests (Lazar 2001). In that they present seemingly neutral and cooperative platforms, transnational institutions have been central for the distillation of US-originating (and to a lesser extend UK) security governance measures in the “war on terror” (Argomaniz Reference Argomaniz2009; Messina Reference Messina2014; Pantazis and Pemberton Reference Pantazis and Pemberton2011; Pawlak Reference Pawlak2009). Radicalization is a particularly illustrative case for this transfer (Neumann Reference Neumann2013). Given that the production of radicalization discourses has been foreign to Canada, Canadian participation in the Roma-Lyon project to address radicalization has been largely in the role of norm-taker. This position is articulated by Bentenuto when submitting a request form to his superiors for funding of his travels to the Roma-Lyon meeting.
Under the “comments” heading, Bentenuto writes: “I believe that our participation in the above mentioned event would greatly assist us in acquiring best practices from correctional professionals from [prisons] within our G8 partners” (CSC 2011-322, 06, emphasis added). As discussed below, Canada had no convicted terrorists at the time, yet the issue of radicalization presented new terrain to develop common security approaches with the United States, United Kingdom, and other G8 partners. To understand network dynamics at work with the Roma-Lyon Group, it is important to underline the driving-effects of norm-makers, as well as the role of norm-takers such as Canada. Examining the agency of role-takers has been neglected in literature on policy transfers (Bjorkdahl Reference Björkdahl2005). But examining the issue of prisoner radicalization demonstrates how Canada, as a norm-taker, adopts best practices recommendations from the Roma-Lyon Group and how these criminal justice practices become incorporated into domestic penal and security policies.
Norm-takers: Radicalization and Canadian Prisons
As actors in good standing within the Roma-Lyon Group, Canadian authorities were quick to act on the recommendations regarding prison radicalization and recruitment. Following the April 2007 meetings in Berlin, Canadian authorities quickly addressed the fifteen priorities developed by the Roma-Lyon Group. For the purpose of developing counter-radicalization strategy, notes from a meeting between PSC officials and Bentenuto from May 16, 2007 (PSC 2012-0025, 151) record how CSC’s first measure was to adapt elements of their strategy “to minimize the strength and recruitment mechanisms of gangs in prisons.” The notes detail how “the gang strategy is intelligence-led and functions with a national security mandate.” CSC underlines that only 1% of the prison population (in 2007) is considered to be active gang participants (7% are considered inactive) and categorize them according to three categories: “Biker gangs; Aboriginals; Violent extremists” (including but not limited to Muslims) (PSC 2012-0025, 151). Underlining the initial gang and counter-radicalization strategy will be “Intergovernmental working groups to develop programs for the Prevention, Intervention, and Repression stages” (PSC 2012-0025, 152).
In January 2008, members of an interdepartmental working group on prisoner radicalization (Working Group 5) wrote a Status Report on the “effective management of radicalized individuals in a correctional environment” (PSC 2012-00025, 160). The report highlights that “under the leadership/Public Safety and the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC), the ‘reform’ working group is mandated with exploring the issue of managing radicalized individuals in a correctional environment by assisting them to abandon terrorism and violence, and by developing programs and interventions to assist with the de-radicalization and safe reintegration of individuals into society.” According to the report, the group met in October 2007 and November 2007 to discuss policy measures to “approach the issue of reform.”
After “assessing the scope of the problem in a Canadian context,” the report notes that CSC did not have any individuals serving sentences for terrorist-related crimes and that there were only “a very small number of offenders with links to terrorist activities” (PSC 2012-0025, 160). Since that time eighteen individuals have been convicted under section 81 of the Criminal Code for “terrorism activities.” Of those convicted, ten remain in federal custody as of early 2015 and some are approaching parole and/or statutory release dates (see Bell Reference Bell2014; Shephard Reference Shephard2014). An additional seventeen individuals are currently facing serious charges under the Anti-terrorism Act (ATA).Footnote 5 While the numbers of convicted terrorists in federal custody vacillates, at no point have there been more than a dozen individuals convicted under the ATA in the federal penal system, which has a variable population close to 14,000 prisoners. Notwithstanding the small number of prisoners convicted of terrorism offences, CSC note that “[t]hough this number is quite small, the scope of the problem grows significantly when considering that each of these individuals has multiple collateral contacts. These numbers can multiply exponentially with each new incarceration. A worrisome possibility is that criminals convicted of very violent crimes might become radicalized while in prison” (PSC 2012-0025, 160). Combining a recognition of a particular—albeit quite limited—risk with the open-endedness of precautionary risk common to contemporary practices in the “security society” (Zedner Reference Zedner2009), Canadian officials stress that the “scope of the problem” applies to the small number of risky convicted terrorists as well as a broad category of undefined persons considered at-risk.
Further meetings of the Working Group 5 took place in March 2008. Demonstrating the transnational scope of these reform efforts, the meetings included participants from CSC, PSC, the US Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), US Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), New York Police Department (NYPD), New York Corrections (NYCC), the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), Canada’s Defence of National Department, and a CSIS agency named the Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre. Again, a summary of the meetings notes that “CSC does not currently have any individuals serving sentences for convictions of terrorist crimes. There are about 13 inmates considered to have links to terrorist activities; scope of problem grows if you consider the multiple collateral contacts of each of these inmates” (PSC 2012-0025, 162). Summaries of the presentations from the FBI, Bureau of Prisons, NYPD, and NY Corrections are all completely redacted. The only notes from the meeting that are not redacted detail how CSC policy on gangs will be utilized for cases of radicalization or recruitment and that CSC uses an “Integrated Intelligence Approach” (PSC 2012-0025, 162).
Much like the opacity of information on the knowledge practices of the Roma-Lyon Group (Scherrer Reference Scherrer2009), efforts within the Canadian government to address the Roma-Lyon agenda are similarly secretive. However, some internal CSC documents reveal much of the substantive effort that Canadian officials have taken to address the best practices recommendations set out by the Roma-Lyon Group. In a PowerPoint presentation at the American Corrections Association in 2009, Larry Motiuk, CSC Director General for Offender Programs and Reintegration, notes that CSC endorses the fifteen recommendations and details how CSC has begun to incorporate these norms into CSC’s Management Plan. Motiuk issued a seven-point list of efforts taken up in Canada (CSC 2011-322, 28-31):
1. Increase the CSC Intelligence Capacity by hiring additional staff (e.g. Security Intelligence Officers, Analysts).
2. Provide training on Radicalization and counter terrorism to CSC field staff in cooperation with CSIS and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Integrated National Security Enforcement Team.
3. Implement policy related to placement of offenders sentenced under the Terrorist Act [sic] by completing a threat Risk Assessment based on: Dynamics of leaders and followers within these groups; Identification of ideology of specific terrorist organizations; Capacity of the individual to incite/promote violence; Capacity of the individual to recruit others to their cause.
4. Implement specific monitoring processes of inmates sentenced under the Terrorist Act [sic]. These are developed following a rigorous assessment process.
5. Insure integration of CSC Chaplaincy Services by recruiting Tolerant Faith Leaders who are supportive of the Services mandate and objectives; Encourage mainstream religious and community support to the offender population; Avoid inmate led religious services; and enhance supervision of religious services.
6. Through information sharing within CSC (security and case management) and with our criminal justice partners and other intelligence agencies, CSC ensure that these inmates are placed in facilities where their potential risk to public safety and national security can most effectively be managed and mitigated.
7. The increasing ethno-cultural diversity within the inmate population brings new challenges that need to be addressed by a culturally competent staff. A directory of cultural mediators, a handbook on successful mediation, and an intercultural conflicts management course have been developed and implemented.
Although not a direct replication, CSC’s “framework for the management of radicalization” contains a number of overlaps with the Roma-Lyon recommendations detailed earlier in this article. The only substantive item from the Roma-Lyon best practices list not directly accounted for is #14, which relates to standardized procurement of religious materials. Although CSC has not formally stated that they have developed a counter-radicalization policy (Gillis 2013), the materials presented by Motiuk illustrate distinct areas of policy change on issues of prison radicalization, as well as a number of specific, policy-guided practices that are being implemented to govern the threat of Islamic radicalization.
Since the need to handle convicted terrorists in Canada is very new—the federal penal system received its first convicted terrorists in 2009–2010—CSC recommendations illustrate three primary trends that characterize a shift in security governance practices to deal with post 9/11 realities: (1) policy guidelines to enhance training and awareness of CSC authorities for identifying traits of radical Islam; (2) enhanced surveillance techniques and technologies targeting prisoners and religious figures; (3) and intelligence sharing with “criminal justice partners and other intelligence agencies.” While practices of surveillance are not novel in penal institutions, the added emphasis on intelligence has amplified rationalities of preventative risk and the centrality of interoperable security intelligence that define contemporary security governance regimes (Amoore and De Goede Reference Amoore, Goede, Amoore and Goede2008; Aradau and Van Munster Reference Aradau and Munster2007; Ericson Reference Ericson2007; Zedner Reference Zedner2009). As the spatial character of counter-terrorism practices shifts from overseas to domestic “enemies within” (Wilner Reference Wilner2008; Reference Wilner2010), security agencies have increased the functionality of intelligence as risk preparedness.
While Canada has been a norm-taker on counter-radicalization policies, other Roma-Lyon Group members have developed far more advanced policies for the detection and neutralization of domestic radical Islam in prisons. This is particularly evident in programs in the United Kingdom and United States (Awan Reference Awan2012; Ballas 2010; Hamm Reference Hamm2013; Useem and Clayton Reference Useem and Clayton2009). In adopting the “framework for the management of radicalization,” CSC has distilled the best practices of Roma-Lyon members into a domestic framework for countering an Islamic threat, including an emphasis on preventative risk and surveillance (see Awan Reference Awan2012; Monaghan Reference Monaghan2013). Motiuk’s first bullet on enhanced intelligence capacities is substantiated by a memorandum on “Approaches to address radicalization in Canadian prisons,” which details how CSC have also improved internal surveillance techniques to adopt counter-terrorism techniques (PSC 2012-0025, 172). For example, they have increased the number of Security Intelligence Officers (SIOs) who work in every institution and “through their training certification program they are given specific sessions dedicated to National Security Issues” (PSC 2012-0025, 18). The training sessions are given by RCMP and CSIS and “SIOs become the subject matter experts for their respective units and deliver information sessions to frontline staff” (PSC 2012-0025, 18). Other documents underline the need for more sophisticated inter-country partnerships including intelligence sharing, which directly pertains to the first recommendation from the Roma-Lyon Group. Documents reveal that international cooperation efforts by Canadian authorities are largely directed at working with US authorities. One document discusses the “Exchange of information with US officials on the radicalization of prison [redacted]... officials from the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) are responding to the possible threat posed by such activities in Canadian federal penitentiaries” (PSC 2012-0025, 29). At the heart of efforts by CSC to address the Roma-Lyon Group recommendations are enhancements to the knowledge practices around radicalization and efforts to share intelligence. Reforms outlined by the “framework for the management of radicalization,” demonstrate a new direction for counter-radicalization policies, as well as substantive reorganization to governing practice of Muslims in Canadian prisons.
While the non-binding and cooperative structure of the Roma-Lyon Group has facilitated the quick travel of counter-radicalization policies, implementation of these best practices are also assisted by the flexibility of radicalization discourses themselves. As illustrated by CSC’s definition, radicalization is a thematic that offers a broad range of applicability. Similar to definitions offered in key policy documents on radicalization (RCMP 2009; NYPD 2007, RAND 2008), CSC say it is “the process whereby individuals transform their worldview over time from a range that society tends to consider to be normal into a range that society tends to consider to be extreme.” As early assessments of academic methodologies to define radicalization have shown, the category often lacks rigour and is highly ambiguous (Githens-Mazer Reference Githens-Mazer2012; Neumann Reference Neumann2013; Neumann and Kleinmann Reference Neumann and Kleinmann2013). Given the few numbers of actual terrorists in Canadian prisons, the flexibility and ambiguity of radicalization discourses have allowed for the invocation of a threat based on the experiences and efforts of norm-makers, such as the United States and United Kingdom, through participation in the Roma-Lyon Group. Tellingly, at the Working Group 5 meetings that took place in March 2008, summary notes (PSC 2012-0025, 162) underline that “radicalization in Canadian prisons is at ‘embryonic stage’ but it’s important to be proactive.”
Similar to “fast policies regimes” (Peck, Reference Peck2011), the movement of counter-radicalization discourses demonstrates how policy legitimacy arises from norm-making entities that set trans-organizational agendas and distill policies through “ready made” recommendation kits (Scherrer Reference Scherrer2009). Studies on policy transfer that challenge the “rational actor” approach—where policy actors engage in a sober assessment of pros and cons, domestic needs and priorities, for domestic policy reforms—underline how “policy myths” circulate through professional fields, reflecting the interests and experiences of more powerful actors (see Hier and Walby Reference Hier and Walby2014). When policies transfer from norm-makers to norm-takers, these “policy myths” have been highlighted within socio-legal scholarship by pointing towards the disjuncture between the prioritization of the reforms and a substantive lack of threats that aim to be governed (Messina Reference Messina2014; Webster Reference Webster2004). Crafted by the experiences and expertise of norm-makers, these “policy myths” reflect more upon the priorities and threats as identified by norm-makers and not the polities who import these reform packages.
Canada has demonstrated a sustained engagement in the Roma-Lyon radicalization and recruitment project. The seven steps underlined by Motiuk demonstrate how CSC’s management plan has been reformed to mirror the best practice recommendations of the Roma-Lyon Group. In reforming their management plan and prioritizing new efforts of surveillance towards Muslim prisoners deemed “radical” or at risk of radicalization, we can trace how policy priorities have been formed based on Roma-Lyon recommendations. Considerable resources have been invested by Canadian actors in participating in Roma-Lyon meetings, and they have made decisive efforts to reformulate inmate management strategies—and the surveillance of Muslim prisoners—based on priorities set by the agendas of norm-makers. As an example of contemporary security governance cooperation, the Roma-Lyon Group project on prisoner radicalization demonstrates a case of criminal justice policy transfer that raises significant questions regarding the impact of transnationally produced security priorities on the domestic policy environment. Although there are only a small number of convicted terrorists, the number of potential “radicals” is comparatively broad. Equally, the criteria for labeling individuals as radicals is far more subjective and the prominence accorded to radicalization discourses cannot be separated from a number of ethical dimensions that remain unaddressed.
Conclusion
By tracing the travelling discourses of “best practices” around prisoner radicalization, we can see how these knowledge assemblages embed and disembed from particular contexts and circulate through G8 networks. Scholarship on policy transfer has highlighted how specific temporal and geographical practices can shift according to “contours of influence and flows of power” on a global scale (Melossi et al. Reference Melossi, Sozzo, Sparks, Melossi, Sozzo and Sparks2011, 3). Diffusion of criminological practices, so central to the contemporary transnational condition (Sheptycki Reference Sheptycki2007), allows for mechanisms of security to circulate in/out of polities, and transnational networks are key sites for the circulation of these criminal justice practices.
As the movement of prisoner radicalization best practices demonstrate, these practices flow from their sites of origin (primarily the United States and United Kingdom), embed within the Roma-Lyon Group, then shape Canadian prison management strategies to survey potentially risky Muslims. While the United States and the United Kingdom act as norm-makers, the Roma-Lyon Group provides the venue for the distillation of these best practices as these discourses embed themselves into the form of the best practices recommendations. In the processes of finding the “cooperation imperative” (Scherrer Reference Scherrer2009) among the group, the Roma-Lyon Group provides an ideal, non-binding, framework for radicalization practices to once again travel from the particularities of the Roma-Lyon network into the jurisdictions of the member countries. In doing so, the best practices list acts as a reference point for an embedding of counter-radicalization practices into member countries.
Underlining the importance of the Roma-Lyon Group (and the G8 in general), the adoption of counter-radicalization penal practices in Canada provides an empirical demonstration of how criminological practices travel in/out of national and transnational institutions. Looking at Canada as a norm-taker on the issue of prisoner radicalization is particularly demonstrative of the constitutive power of discourses around radicalization by virtue of the prioritization it has received within Canadian security agencies despite—as they acknowledge—the “limited scope of the problem.” As research on criminal justice policy transfer demonstrates, reform processes often embody a disjuncture between “policy myths” circulated by norm-makers and the domestic environments faced by norm-takers (Hier and Walby Reference Hier and Walby2014; Mcguire and King 2013; Rosga Reference Rosga2010). This disjuncture is highlighted by the lingering dilemma faced by Canadian security agencies around their descriptions of the limited “scope of the problem.” As we see with the materials discussed, officials acknowledge the limited threat of Islamic radicalization in Canadian prisons yet carry out a wide-range of reforms with an emphasis on the potential for others to become infected by radicalization, concerns about multiple collateral contacts, and precautionary concerns over future incarcerations, all of which leads CSC to characterize 13 people out of 14,000 as “embryonic threat[s]” deserving their own strategy for “Prevention, Intervention, and Repression.”
As socio-legal research on security governance demonstrates, the outward expansion of intelligence and surveillance practices is a “power game directed by those who classify risk” (Beck Reference Beck2006; see also Ericson Reference Ericson2007). Risk and security are governing logics that operate without an exterior: they are expansive, ever collecting, aggregating, calculating social spaces into the fold. An emphasis on precautionary logics also produces security paradoxes where “governing through crime and security based on the culture of fear can clearly lead to irrational outcomes” (Eski Reference Eski2011, 425). An excess of policing and surveillance “leads to conflict and insecurity” (Eski Reference Eski2011, 426) and tends to produce racialized profiling practices. As techniques of security transferred through best practices regimes, the tendency to rationalize “Muslim profiling” practices through the lens of precautionary risk represents one of the worst practices of the “war on terror.” In a penal setting, CSC’s “framework for the management of radicalization” borrows from precautionary risk practices that prioritize intensive security and surveillance practices as well as a culture of suspicion and antagonism (De Goede and De Graff 2013; Jones Reference Jones2014; author). In Canada, many of the individuals convicted of terrorism are seeking parole and have unequivocally distanced themselves from radical Islam.Footnote 6 Although none of those convicted have committed any acts of violence (convictions have been based solely on terrorism planning at the aspirational stage; see Monaghan Reference Monaghan2013), their maximum-security classifications and lack of program access has been a barrier to rehabilitative and re-integrative measures (Bell 2012; Gillis 2013; Shephard Reference Shephard2014). Given that counter-radicalization policy transfers have been driven by the best practices from abroad, the policy legitimacy that rationalizes these reforms needs to be understood as an extension of global trends within the “war on terror” as opposed to policy reformulation driven by domestic contextualities.
Focusing on efforts in Canada to replicate the prescriptions of the Roma-Lyon Group, this article has demonstrated how transnational networks amplify coordinated security practices associated with the “war on terror,” and it has facilitated the distillation of criminal justice policy transfer. Examining Canadian participation in the secretive Roma-Lyon Group provides a window on the circulation of norms within an elite security governance network. Canada’s position as a norm-taker is demonstrative of the power of radicalization discourses and security governance cooperation in general, especially in regards to the disjuncture between the priority-treatment accorded to the implementation of counter-radicalization projects and the marginal threat threshold presented by Islamic radicalism in Canada prisons.
Given that these transformations appear to be largely driven by experts and bureaucrats at the margins of the G8 network—and not the politicians—they are a strong empirical example of the power of “securocrats” (Pawlak Reference Pawlak2009) in the field of criminal justice policy transfer. Particularly in reference to the growing discursive power of radicalization discourses, the replication of counter-radicalization practices in Canadian prisons demonstrates how policy legitimacy can be rationalized by the priorities and experiences of norm-makers, and implemented in domestic contexts despite a “limited scope of the problem.”
Although a fuller account of counter-radicalization policies will not be available for several years, a number of preliminary issues have emerged since the strengthened practices outlined by Motiuk have been implemented. By early 2013, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews had cancelled all minority-faith (non-Christian) part-time prison chaplains in federal prisons. Although CSC claims to have about eighty full-time chaplains serving federal penitentiaries, it only has one Imam (serving Ontario), and the rest are either Roman Catholic or Protestant. There are accounts of Imams now being refused access to prisons, and requests for Muslim prayer rooms have also been rejected. A growing literature from jurisdictions promoting best practices regimes of surveillance and preventative risk practices has raised fundamental questions about the uneasy relationship between security practices of the “war on terror” and democratic principles (Bigo Reference Bigo, Bigo and Anastassia2008; Ericson Reference Ericson2007; Huysmans Reference Huysmans2014). Even more than the G8 itself, the Roma-Lyon Group is a highly secretive and unrepresentative collection of elite securocrats who have consistently downplayed issues of privacy, civil rights, rule of law, and issues of data protection (Scherrer Reference Scherrer2009).
As the threat of radicalization influences a host of increasingly discriminatory policies targeting Muslims, it raises co-attendant risks around the “securitization of Islam” (Mavelli Reference Mavelli2013) as well as the “criminalization of the Other” (Garland Reference Garland1996) where repressive surveillance and security practices “creep” out to an expanded field of potential risk. Canada’s readiness to replicate radicalization discourses and practices—despite the limited scope of the problem—speaks to the risk-imperative logic of security governance. While the risk of jihadist radicalism is remote and rare in Canada, Canada’s norm-taking identity is deeply influenced by mirroring its experience based on the experience and priorities of its G7/8 allies, particularly the United States. Projects like the Roma-Lyon Group on prisoner radicalization point to the influence of transnational security networks in the replication of criminal justice policies based on precautionary risk. It is an influence that will likely increase.
