Independent Review of Prevent: Operational Delivery across the UK

The Independent Review of Prevent has been published by the Government on Wednesday 8th February 2023.

The Review, which was commissioned by then Home Secretary, Priti Patel MP, in 2019 and led by William Shawcross, has produced a significant report analysing both the overarching Prevent strategy, and its operational delivery across the UK.

The report made 34 recommendations – which the government has accepted all the recommendations in the review.

CONTEST will be refreshed and will be used as a way of delivering the recommendations.

What is PREVENT?
Prevent is 1 of the 4 areas of CONTEST, the government’s counter-terrorism strategy and aims to stop people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism.

The three main objectives of PREVENT are:

1. Tackle the causes of radicalisation and respond to the ideological challenge of terrorism
2. Safeguard and support those most at risk of radicalisation through early intervention, identifying them and offering support
3. Enable those who have already engaged in terrorism to disengage and rehabilitate

Who is PREVENT for?

• Prevent initiatives tackle both the causes & risk factors that can lead someone to become radicalised.
• It can directly support those who are at risk through early intervention.
• Prevent works in a similar way to other safeguarding processes, designed to protect individuals whereby the level of intervention increases with the level of risk.
• Under the Prevent Duty all public sector agencies have a responsibility to ensure their staff, service providers & volunteers have a good understanding of risks, and are trained to recognise radicalisation and associated behaviours and how to report concerns.

What is Radicalisation?

• Radicalisation is the process by which a person comes to support terrorism and in some cases then participates in terrorist activity.
• There is no one process or indicator of when a person might move to adopt violence in support of extremist ideas.
• The process is different for each individual and can take place over an extended period or a short time frame.

What is Extremism?

• Extremism is defined as, vocal or active opposition to British values:
  • Democracy
  • The Rule of Law
  • Individual liberty
  • Mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs.
• Also includes extremism calls for the death of members of our armed forces.

Expressing our views

• PREVENT is not about stopping people holding and expressing's views others might find offensive.
• Holding certain views such as anti-immigration, pro-life, opposition to same sex marriage as examples are all legitimate.
• It is when there is evidence of vocal or active harassment, intimidation or incitement to violence that there is a risk to people being drawn into terrorism.

What to do if you have concerns

If you notice a change in an individual or identify concerns that lead you to suspect that they may be vulnerable to radicalisation, notify LMP Group DSL/DSO

• The process will be followed as mapped out in the LMP Group Safeguarding & PREVENT policy
• May result in a referral to the ‘Channel’ programme
• Channel is an voluntary, multi-agency process designed to safeguard vulnerable people from being drawn into violent extremism or terrorist behaviour. Multi-agency partners collectively assess the risk to an individual, decide whether an intervention is necessary and develop an appropriate support package for each referral.