With, on average, 650,000 children referred annually for safeguarding concerns there are potentially hundreds of thousands of people facing the same predicament as myself and ‘Rebecca’ each and every year. While I agree in principle with the need to offer support for those who make safeguarding referrals, I am slightly cynical when someone exceptionalises referrals for radicalisation over and above all other instances of social harm.
I know from personal experience that the follow up to making a safeguarding referral can be near non-existent, but as someone who has subsequently received referrals, I have always made an effort to reassure the referrer about their decision and to follow up those difficult conversations.
As Natalie rightly notes, sometimes (thankfully very rarely) professionals will get it wrong. With over 1500 vulnerable people successfully supported through the Channel programme since 2012, it would be churlish to condemn an entire policy over isolated mistakes, but we absolutely must reflect and learn from those few tragic errors. Where support is needed for anyone involved, then yes of course it should be made available and I would advocate for a consistent approach across the country.
On Natalie’s second point it is important to acknowledge why Prevent’s early inception was focused on Islamist terrorism; it was a response to the recruitment efforts of al-Qa’ida (AQ), an organisation which explicitly targeted our Muslim communities to further its agenda of political violence. In the wake of the London bombings of 2005, it therefore seemed pragmatic to consult widely with Muslim communities about the best way to tackle the threat from AQ and to offer all necessary resources, efforts and support to the very communities being so ruthlessly targeted.
It is a common trope of critics that Prevent views Muslims as a potential threat, whereas in fact it is now a threat agnostic policy which recognises that a series of underlying vulnerabilities, when coupled with a cognitive opening for violent ideologies and an absence of protective factors, can create an increased likelihood of engaging in violence. I would argue that it’s the perpetuation of these tropes, often by bad faith actors and clumsy media reporting, and not the application of the policy that has led to some maintaining anxiety around Prevent. I would however agree with Natalie that more should be done to challenge this narrative.
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William Baldet | Radio Free (2020-03-04T23:00:00+00:00) Preventing violent extremism: stepping out of our echo chambers. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2020/03/04/preventing-violent-extremism-stepping-out-of-our-echo-chambers/
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