After Capitol riot, desperate families turn to groups that 'deprogram' extremists
Source: Washington Post
After Capitol riot, desperate families turn to groups that deprogram extremists
By Paulina Villegas and Hannah Knowles
2/5/2021, 7:00:50 a.m.
Her brother couldnt make it to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, but she worried that he would join a new insurrection that one day he would be one of the people on TV.
The woman in her 30s asked her family to make plans, she said, hoping to keep her brother busy. Then she contacted a nonprofit group called Parents for Peace that seeks to pull people back from extremism, hoping to save him, after years of dismay at his hatred of Muslims and Mexicans and now alarm at his anger over the presidential election.
Dissecting her brothers life and their relationship in weekly sessions, she started to wonder whether she was part of the problem.
The woman, who did not want her name or location made public so as not to upset her brother, is part of a surge of desperate families and friends calling organizations that aim to deradicalize and deprogram extremists across the ideological spectrum. Such organizations say demand for their free services has never been higher.
Parents for Peace, a 10-person operation of mostly volunteers, says calls to its national helpline have tripled since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, with a growing number of younger people being groomed in white supremacist ideology. After supporters of then-President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, the intervention groups have experienced a deluge of calls related to the attack as well as to conspiracy theories and QAnon.
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/02/05/desperate-families-are-seeking-groups-that-deprogram-extremists/