Since July, police have arrested three out of eight freed terrorists for breaching control orders that are intended to prevent them from re-offending or being a threat to the Australian public. The most recent arrest was this week.
Loading
“The whole thing around these particular individuals being released from prison actually does concern us,” Mr Kershaw said.
It was a “constant concern” that many of them appeared not to have changed their ideologies.
“If we look at overseas experience, what we’re concerned about is some of the most recent examples are people who have been allegedly deradicalised but they’ve faked that or got through those tests,” he said. “They’ve been assessed as being deradicalised, they’ve gone through programs and so on, [but] they haven’t changed their views.”
Police were using all the tools and legislation available to them, but “continuing detention is obviously our preference”, Mr Kershaw said.
Department of Home Affairs head Mike Pezzullo said views that it might be best to keep convicted terrorists locked up had to be balanced against the administration of justice.
“All things being equal, of course, you would think in a liberal society that the person is free to go about their lives,” he said. “However, if they’re a continuing threat there’s clearly a basis for seeking the orders the commissioner has spoken about.”
There was an “active discussion” among like-minded countries about the best psychological tools to measure deradicalisation but it was a very complex matter, he said.
