21. juni 2019 ble AreaS medlem Franck Orban spurt av Senter for ekstremismeforskning C-Rex om å legge fram rapporten om mentorordningen i kriminalomsorgen som han leverte til justis- og beredskapsdepartementet i februar i år. Det skjedde i forbindelse med den årlige konferansen organisert av Society for Terrorism Research. Konferansens tema i år var «The data revolution in terrorism research: implications for theory and practice.»
The Norwegian government launched in June 2014 an action plan against radicalization and violent extremism. As a part of it, Norwegian correctional authorities were asked to create a mentoring program for inmates who were identified as being vulnerable to radicalization or recruitment to violent extremism. Following a planning phase between autumn 2014 and 2015, the program started early in 2016 and went through a first evaluation phase up to the end of 2018. We present here some results from this evaluation published in February 2019. The report is based on direct access to internal documents from the Directorate of Norwegian Correctional Service and interviews with inmates participating to the program, their mentors and prison staffers working with inmates. The report raises the question of how the mentoring program has been perceived by all three groups (prison system, mentors, mentees) and how it impacted on them.