Overcrowding, for instance, is likely to cause frustration and anger among prisoners whose access to basic necessities and/or to work, vocational, educational activities or rehabilitation programmes becomes limited. At the same time, overcrowding hampers supervision by prison staff, due to an insufficient staff-to-prisoner ratio and, as a result, can negatively affect the safety of prisoners. A lack of safety and security, combined with inadequate supervision, makes for a dangerous combination that may affect an 67 individual’s decision to join violent extremist groups. Alternatives to imprisonment68 are key to both addressing overcrowding and reducing opportunities for recruitment, as fewer individuals would be in contact with violent extremist prisoners. In such cases, more prison resources can also be devoted to the management of prisoners classified 69 as high-risk. Similarly, the disproportionate, discriminatory or arbitrary use of restrictions, disciplinary measures and sanctions, force, instruments of restraint or searches of prisoners (that 70 can amount to torture or other ill-treatment), may contribute or reinforce processes of 71 violent radicalization. The unfair or unjust treatment – actual or perceived – of prisoners may provide for violent extremist narratives to take roots, as this reinforces “us” versus “them” thinking or victimization discourse. Such treatment may echo the frustrations and discrimination prisoners experienced outside prisons and may be understood as another 72 manifestation of humiliation of their group, based on ethnic and religious, political or other grounds. It can also be used by violent extremist groups outside of prisons for 73 propaganda and recruitment purposes. Outside of prison, many factors can be conducive to (or even drivers of) VERLT, including ideologies or narratives that sanction the use of violence, as well as the attraction 74 manifested by certain charismatic leaders. These factors can be all the more appealing to those already dealing with the hardships and burden of prison life. Once again, however, it is crucial that an individual’s perceived connection to a specific ideology, political view, religion or belief is not, in itself, misunderstood as an inherent sign of radicalization to terrorism or violence that justifies restrictions of prisoner’s rights. Disproportionate measures, such as undue restrictions on access to or possession of literature and information materials of a political nature, or the removal of religious items and the denial of prisoners’ rights to observe their religion, likely stigmatize and alienate individuals, and may even fuel VERLT rather than prevent it. 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 IIJ, “Prison Management Recommendations to Counter and Address Prison Radicalization”, op. cit., note 60, Recommendation 2. OSCE participating States have committed themselves “to pay particular attention to the question of alternatives to imprisonment”, OSCE Conference on the Human Dimension of the CSCE, Moscow Document, Moscow, 3 October 1991, para. 23.2.ii. IIJ, “Prison Management Recommendations to Counter and Address Prison Radicalization”, op. cit., note 60, Recommendation 2. UN Nelson Mandela Rules, op. cit., note 14, Rules 36-46, 47-49 and 50-53. Council of Europe, “Guidelines for Prison and Probation Services regarding Radicalisation and Violent Extremism”, op. cit., note 56, Guideline 9. Ibid. ICSR, “Prisons and Terrorism – Radicalization and Deradicalization in 15 Countries”, op. cit., note 6, p. 22. UNODC, Handbook on the Management of Violent Extremist Prisoners and the Prevention of Radicalization to Violence in Prisons, op. cit., note 2, p. 110-113. 23