Reintegration and Counter-Radicalization: A Case Study of the BNPT Deradicalization Program at Sentul Special Correctional Facility

Abstract

This study evaluates the National Counterterrorism Agency's deradicalization program at the Sentul Class IIB Special Correctional Facility in Bogor. A qualitative case-study design combines field observation, document analysis, and interviews with 35 informants: 20 former terrorist inmates, five BNPT instructors, five correctional officers, and five terrorism scholars. Program effectiveness is examined across short-, medium-, and long-term dimensions, including participation, behavioral and attitudinal change, social reintegration, and resistance to re-recruitment. The source reports that national-insight education, moderate religious dialogue, psychological counseling, and vocational training support cooperation and disengagement during and shortly after incarceration. Among the 20 former inmates interviewed, 14 were reported to have reintegrated peacefully and started independent livelihoods, while six experienced continuing social and economic difficulties. Long-term sustainability remains constrained by stigma, limited employment access, and pressure from former extremist networks. The study therefore proposes community-based aftercare involving government agencies, local facilitators, civil society, families, and receiving communities. The reported 85% program indicator cannot be independently audited because the source does not identify its denominator, documentary dataset, coding trail, ethics approval, or recidivism measurement period; it is consequently treated as a source-reported indicator rather than a verified population estimate.