On 17 December, following a months-long review of the UK's counter-extremism policies, the government announced plans for a new set of measures for tackling what it describes as ‘youth radicalisation’. These plans include increasing funding for counter-terrorism police and introducing new ‘youth diversion orders’ for managing 'radicalisation' cases, as well as a pledge to strengthen Prevent -- the UK’s deeply controversial counter-extremism programme.
'Radicalisation' continues to lack a coherent definition, and civil society groups have repeatedly called for Prevent to be scrapped altogether, highlighting what appears to be racist targeting of Muslims and other minoritised groups, the silencing of lawful expression in schools and universities, negative impacts on neurodivergent children, and ways that Prevent data practices interfere with privacy rights, among other issues. Statistics that the Home Office publishes annually show that authorities mainly target children and older teens for these 'counter-extremism' interventions, while data RSI has obtained from the government raises concerns that teachers, police, health sector workers and others may be disproportionately referring children (and adults) from Asian, Black and Middle Eastern backgrounds to Prevent.
The new government has an important opportunity to end this programme, for which there is little published evidence of success (despite decades of operation) and a great deal of evidence of failure. However, instead of ending Prevent, it appears that the government is currently planning to further entrench and expand a programme that has led to the extensive surveillance and policing of young people in the UK.
We are concerned that the proposals the government has outlined in its announcement will escalate, rather than reduce, the discriminatory over-policing of young people, especially those from minoritised groups. Measures the government says will tackle ‘dangerous ideologies’, such as an expanded use of controversial ‘ideological mentoring’ as well as new 'youth diversion orders' that would restrict young people's online activity, may violate the human rights to freedom of expression, freedom of religion and privacy. Meanwhile, the government has not yet cited any evidence from academic disciplines such as public health or psychology to back up its proposals, providing little reason to believe that the new measures will reduce violence in society.
The government should approach violence prevention by focusing exclusively on violence and its root causes, as documented in decades' worth of academic research by professionals. Instead, the government is continuing to rely on the idea that violence is caused by ‘radicalisation’, even as it seeks to boost its proposals by saying that the young people about whom it is concerned increasingly do not have an 'ideology'. The government's announcement also gives the impression that it is trying to solve what is fundamentally a problem with the large tech companies — i.e. the phenomenon of violent content that becomes easily accessible via monopolistic platforms — by unleashing the criminal justice system against children.
Further, there is little indication that the proposed approach is responsive to the massive outbreak of racist, anti-migrant violence and destruction in numerous UK cities in August 2024, the vast majority of which was perpetrated by adults.
RSI will continue to watch for developments in the government’s approach to counter-extremism, and to call for the abolition of Prevent.
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