# Disengagement **Entity class:** Behavioral exit process **Domain:** Rehabilitation / counterterrorism / criminology **Maturity:** Developed ## Definition **Disengagement** is a reduction or cessation of participation in terrorist or violent-extremist activity. It is primarily behavioral and relational: leaving a group, abandoning an operational role, ceasing recruitment, or reducing capability and contact. Disengagement can follow arrest, burnout, family change, disillusionment, fear, opportunity, negotiated exit, or rehabilitation. It need not entail ideological conversion. Risk assessment should therefore avoid treating outward compliance as proof of cognitive change while also recognizing that durable behavioral exit is a meaningful outcome. ## Relationships - **exit from:** terrorist activity within [[wiki/Counterterrorism|Counterterrorism]]. - **distinct from:** [[wiki/Deradicalization|Deradicalization]]. - **supported by:** [[wiki/Countering Violent Extremism|Countering Violent Extremism]], rehabilitation, and reintegration. - **network dimension:** separation from recruiters and operational ties identified through [[wiki/Social Network Analysis|Social Network Analysis]]. ## Sources / Provenance - [UNODC — Technical Assistance Handbook, section on deradicalization and disengagement](https://www.unodc.org/pdf/terrorism/UNODC_Technical_Assistance_Handbook_-_Electronic_ENG.pdf)