PRISON MANAGEMENT fails to function effectively, leaving vast numbers of detainees, including former combatants and suspected members of extremist groups, awaiting trial for long periods. There may also be a significant lack of qualified prison staff available, and reform is rarely a priority for national governments or for the international community. Prisons are also used during and after conflicts for arbitrary detention and torture in breach of international law. The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic noted a widespread and systematic pattern in which boys and men above the age of 15 had been arbitrarily arrested and detained by Syrian government security, armed forces, or militia acting on their behalf.377 A new development in 2018 saw the government of Syria issuing death notices for political detainees who went missing during the civil war.378 The Group of Regional and International Eminent Experts on Yemen found that there had been widespread arbitrary detention throughout the country and ill-treatment and torture in some facilities during the conflict.379 In Iraq, hundreds of so-called Islamic State suspects, including children, were arbitrarily detained. Many were held in overcrowded jails without charge and foreign nationals were in legal limbo owing to uncertainty about where their trials would take place.380 In Libya, there were reports of torture and inhumane conditions across many detention facilities.381 Effective and fair criminal justice systems are urgently required in such contexts in order to break cycles of impunity and violence and to prevent dire prison conditions leading to the radicalisation of individuals by extremist groups. While prisons are often overlooked as an area of concern in post-conflict countries, UN peacekeeping missions are increasingly engaged in the reform and strengthening of justice and prison systems. They have, for example, implemented rehabilitation programmes for Al-Shabaab prisoners in Somalia and supported operational directives for the management of Afghan prisons.382 In the Central African Republic, PRI has been working with the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission on prison reform. It is a challenging context owing to the lack of financial, material, human and institutional resources, as well as the volatility of the security situation. Nonetheless, PRI has successfully supported the government in developing a national strategy, which has now been adopted, to demilitarise the prison service. Previously the prison service was comprised of armed and security forces; prison management will now be transferred to professionally qualified civilian staff.383 RECOMMENDATION 18 The reform of criminal justice and prison systems should be a priority for the international community in its efforts to assist conflict and post-conflict societies. Reforms should focus on re-establishing the rule of law and on treating prisoners in line with international standards, including the Nelson Mandela Rules and the Bangkok Rules. Violent extremism in prison Violent extremism in prisons remains high on the agenda internationally, regionally and nationally. The relationship between crime and terrorism has been well explored.384 On the one hand, ‘ordinary’ prisoners need to be protected from recruitment and the influence of violent extremist prisoners, but, on the other, violent extremist prisoners need to be identified and need to undergo practical and effective methods to support their disengagement from violence. This issue creates a number of challenges and dilemmas for prison administrations, which may have just a handful of violent extremist prisoners to manage – or thousands. The UNODC asserts that any proposed intervention on this issue should be embedded within broader reform strategies rather than in isolation, and also states that ‘[v]ulnerability to radicalization to violence is exacerbated in prisons that are overcrowded, understaffed, fail to provide basic services to prisoners, or are otherwise managed in a disorderly manner’.385 A meeting of prison practitioners in Europe in 2018 also concluded that overcrowding, poor prison conditions and management, and the presence of violent extremism prisoners who are charismatic leaders are the main causes of vulnerability to radicalisation.386 The management of violent extremist prisoners should be framed at all times by international human rights standards, including the Nelson Mandela Rules and the Bangkok Rules. Above all, prison staff play a key role in identifying and preventing violent extremism in prisons, by building trust and helping to break down a ‘them’ and ‘us’ barrier. They require support and training to effectively fulfil this role. Penal Reform International and Thailand Institute of Justice | Global Prison Trends 2019 One challenge for prison management is knowing how to assess and identify if a prisoner holds violent extremist beliefs or is at risk of doing so. Various tools387 have been created to assess this specific risk, looking at criteria such as affiliation, adherence to ideology, factors supporting disengagement, capability and emotional factors. They have not yet been fully validated. A further dilemma is whether to pursue ‘de-radicalisation’ or ‘disengagement’ as an approach to the rehabilitation and reintegration of prisoners who have been identified as holding violent extremist beliefs. The concept of ‘de-radicalisation’ is generally assumed to imply attitudinal change leading to reduced support for violent extremism, or ideally a complete rejection of ideologically justified violence. However, the concept of de-radicalisation is | 35