QUICK TAKES // BY BEN FRANKELU.K. to Reform the “Prevent” Counter-Radicalization Program

Published 8 February 2023

A just-published review of Prevent, the U.K. program aiming to curb radicalization, harshly criticizes the program for succumbing to political correctness. William Shawcross, the author of the review, says that this has caused officials at Prevent to downplay the role of religion and militant Islamic ideology as drivers of radicalization, focusing instead on the psychological vulnerabilities and economic and social privation of Muslim extremists. At the same time, Prevent has inflated the threat posed by far-right extremists.

The Prevent policy was introduced in the U.K. in 2003 as part of a broader post-9/11 counterterrorism approach. Prevent has focused on preventing the radicalization of individuals to terrorism.

In 2015, the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act introduced a formal legal “Prevent duty” to implement Prevent not only in schools – the original focus of Prevent – but at every public-sector institution. This expansion of Prevent made the program reach more deeply into British society.

Prevent has three strategic objectives: (1) respond to the ideological challenge of terrorism; (2) prevent people from being drawn into terrorism and ensure that they are given appropriate advice and support; and (3) work with sectors and institutions where there are risks of radicalization.

At the heart of the Prevent strategy are various forms of surveillance and monitoring driven by the assumption that radicalization is an important part of an overall conveyor belt to terrorism. Prevent aims to disrupt this conveyor belt and reduce future acts of terrorism by acting in the present to spot radicalization in its early stages.

Prevent has faced criticism since its inception. These criticisms fall into two distinct categories:

— Many, typically from the left, have criticized Prevent for having emerged from the notion that the terrorism threat is, in fact, an “Islamic threat,” leading to the creation of a surveillance and monitoring infrastructure embedded into Muslim communities in Britain. The critics in this group argue that the Prevent strategy has been at the forefront of disseminating and normalizing Islamophobia across society by implanting its assumptions and prejudices into the structural operation of numerous institutions, and shaping the practices of public-sector employees. If the problem of extremism and terrorism is closely tied to and associated with Muslims and Islam, then the terror threat must be regarded as an Islamic threat. The Prevent policy document does refer to other extreme groups and forms of terrorism (such as right wing terrorism), but the thrust of the policy, these critics say, is and has been about Islamic terrorism.