Deradicalisation is everyone’s business

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/11/deradicalisation-everyones-business

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The Prevent [counter-radicalisation] programme is supported by the police but not police-led (‘Intrusive’ programmes are to become more widespread, 10 March). It places a responsibility on all public agencies to work with local people and community groups to try to prevent people being drawn into violent extremism; whether Islamic or rightwing. Like similar programmes to prevent people getting involved in drugs, gangs or criminality, it will have successes and failures. Some will believe the counter-narrative, others will not.

Prevent faces particular challenges because many Muslims feel their religion is unfairly portrayed in the media and have had serious misgivings about British foreign policy. Nevertheless surveys show that they have a higher level of confidence in policing than the rest of the population.

We are confronted by an increasingly troubled international situation and social media’s ability to stream extreme material into our children’s bedrooms. It is all the more important that communities stand together and acknowledge that all parents find it difficult to get the right balance between allowing children freedom to explore new things while protecting them from harmful people or situations. That is why, on the whole, chief constables support the aim for all public bodies to have clear policies on supporting those vulnerable to violent extremist ideologies.

Prevent has been described as a toxic brand. It could be rebranded, but the need for a programme that seeks to protect people from being brainwashed into violent action will not go away.Chief Constable Peter FahyNational policing lead for Prevent

• It is difficult to dismiss the claim, by Dal Babu, former chief superintendent of the Metropolitan police, that the Prevent programme has become a toxic brand, because, both it and its sister programme Channel, have become mechanisms for the mass surveillance of Muslim communities. The reality is, however, more complex. Research shows, for example, that Bristol’s approach to Prevent (albeit to the previous rather than the current version) “provided several institutional mechanisms for Muslim community involvement including leadership capacity-building, agenda-setting powers and representation of a variety of perspectives in an advisory body” and that this had “a significant impact on the density of contacts and interactions between local authorities and the Muslim community, andthus addressed some of the previous deficits regarding Muslims’ political representation in the city” (Lewicki, O’Toole and Modood, Building the Bridge: Muslim community engagement in Bristol, October 2014). The challenge for those who criticise deradicalisation in general, and Prevent in particular, is to propose convincingly how would-be jihadis might be deterred and interdicted without reliable, surveillance-based intelligence, while the challenge for the authorities is to link counter-terrorism more successfully with the social and political inclusion of all communities, particularly at the local level.Steven GreerProfessor of human rights, University of Bristol law school