Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Australian Immigration Black Hole: A Radical Problem?, Alan Davies, Joe Ducie, Scott Eadie

Australian Counter Terrorism Conference

Australia has done what it can to secure its borders and to prevent terrorist attacks at home. The path to radicalisation is paved with the disenfranchised and the alienated. This paper assesses the conditions of radicalisation, and whether Australia’s strict immigration and detention policy for asylum seekers arriving by boat is a breeding ground for radical behaviour. The processes of radicalisation are explored and compared to previous attacks seen in Britain. The narrative of recruitment offered by organisations such as Al Qaeda is appealing to those bereft of cultural identity, incarcerated in prisons and inside detention centres (Gunaratna, 2011; Hamm, …