Sociologist Tinka Veldhuis, working at the University in the city of Groningen, concludes that decisions regarding the seclusion of terrorism suspects and – convicts have been made without thorough investigation.
The idea behind the seclusion measures is that it will prevent Muslim extremists to influence other detainees. But interviews of ‘normal’ detainees by Veldhuis show that those extremists have a very negative image and it doesn’t seem likely they will be successful in influencing others.
According to Veldhuis it’s more likely that they will become more radicalized while excluded from the rest: they are surrounded by people who have the same way of thinking and there also exists a lot of anger about their treatment and stigmatization. Not just among the detainees themselves, but also among their followers.
Veldhuis’ idea is to develop a ‘risk profile’ of every detainee in order to decide if they indeed need to be secluded. She also favours more attention for the reintegration of a detainee into society.
