Under the auspices of the German Presidency of the Committee of Ministers, the Council of Europe and the German Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection co-hosted a Conference on “(De)radicalisation in Prisons”, during which topics including training for prison officers, multi-agency co-operation and the risk assessment of terrorist inmates were examined and discussed.

Speakers included the Chair and Vice-Chair of the Council of Europe Council for Penological Co-operation (PC-CP), the Chair of the Working Group on Risk Assessment of Individuals Indicted and Convicted for Terrorist Offences (CDCT-RA), the Head of Department from the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs of Bremen and a forensic psychiatrist and co-author of the Violent Extremism Risk Assessment tool (VERA-2R).

Mr Jan Kleijssen, Director, Information Society - Action against Crime Directorate, Council of Europe, Dr. Margaretha Sudhof, State Secretary, German Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection and Ms Ileana Visoiu, Chair of the Council of Europe Committee on Counter-Terrorism opened the event together with Mr Torben Adams, Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Officer, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), who moderated the event.