The radicalisation of Australian citizens, and the decision by a small number to commit acts of extremist violence, has led to considerable community concern in recent years.

In NSW, there was the tragic December 2014 Martin Place Lindt Café siege 1 and the October 2015 murder of a police civilian finance worker outside the NSW Police Force headquarters.

On a global scale, radicalisation and extremism have led Australians to travel to conflict zones to fight in foreign wars. A recent report in the Australian Police Journal estimated that up to 250 Australian jihadis took part in the conflict in Syria in 2014. This number is both numerically and proportionally greater than the number of foreign fighters from other nations, including the United States, the Netherlands and several Scandinavian countries.