Angell helps Rehabilitate Terrorists

Susan Matheny

June 15, 2011


Sixth-graders in Margee O'Brien's class at Jefferson County Middle School gained a new appreciation for schoolwork June 8, after hearing how education is being used to rehabilitate terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Guest speaker, Ami Angell, the sister of local resident Clint Prevett, shared her experiences of directing rehabilitation programs for 3 1/2 years at Camp Bucca in Iraq.

"It is the world's largest detention facility with over 20,000 Iraqi detainees. I (directed) 155 Iraqi professionals, including teachers, clerics and psychologists, who implemented the programs," she said.

Since 2009, Angell has been a research fellow at the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research, part of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

At Camp Bucca, she worked under Maj. Gen. Douglas Stone as a specialist in terrorist rehabilitation.

When she first came to the camp, it did not have any planned activities for the detainees, who often filled in their time with radical religion classes, which converted many others to extremism.

When Maj. Gen. Stone arrived, he had the idea to curb violence among detainees by doing religious discussion programs.

In the religious classes, Islamic clerics met with small groups of 10 detainees to discuss what the Quran really said. Many of the detainees were uneducated and shocked to learn their ideas of Islam were flawed.

"They didn't question what people had told them and didn't even understand the reasons for many things, from washing hands and feet before prayers, to why they pray," Angell said.

After gaining interest from those classes, she said, "We moved on to vocational training in agriculture, sewing and woodworking; educational classes to teach reading and writing; and creative arts for those who were not verbally articulate."

Camp Bucca had all male detainees, but Angell also worked with a small group of women and juveniles at Camp Cropper.

The experience was not without dangers. She lived on a military base, but was spit on, threatened and shot at twice, both on the base and while traveling in Iraq. But she feels the changes she witnessed far outweighed the threats.

"It's all about transforming and empowering the Iraqi detainee population -- where they come up with the answer. (If you help empower them) they will be on your side, because they don't want to hurt the hand that helps them," she said.

Every individual is surrounded by 100 other people that they influence. So, if you make an enemy of one person, you've actually created that many other enemies, she observed.

"But the same applies if you rehabilitate one person -- you create 100 friends. It's very contagious and switches the dynamics of the detention center," Angell said.

"I saw huge changes in the dynamics of people in detention and of those who visited them. Some begged to stay in detention until they could finish their education classes," she said.

"Since implementation of the rehabilitation programs in detention centers, violence was decreased by 50 percent, and intelligence was increased by three times what it was previously," she added.

As of August 2010, Camp Bucca was handed over to Iraqi control, and it is up to that government to continue the rehabilitation programs.

But terrorist rehabilitation programs have been introduced by the U.S. in Afghanistan, and Angell visited this year to check on progress and talk with Vice Adm. Robert Harward, the detention operations commander.

She is now back in Singapore working on developing a model for the rehabilitation of imprisoned criminals in the U.S., and working with various countries on programs to rehabilitate terrorists on a global scale.

"For the model, we're focusing on Folsom Prison because it has a history of being overcrowded and violent. The model uses the same seven elements to transform people: religious/spiritual, psychological, social/family, education, vocational training, creative arts, and recreation," Angell said.

Her experiences in Iraq and details on the programs are outlined in her book, "Terrorist Rehabilitation: The U.S. Experience in Iraq," which will be released July 1, at major book stores and on Amazon.com.

Angell holds a doctorate in international public law, a master of law in human rights law, and a master of arts in the theory and practice of human rights from the American University of London and the University of Essex, as well as a bachelor's degree in philosophy, sociology and theory from Newman College in Kansas.