End of Prevent?
originally published by: IRR
15th July 2010
The government’s controversial preventing violent extremism programme is apparently to be dismantled.
According to a report in the Guardian on 14 July, the Home Office, in addition to carrying out a review of anti-terror powers relating to control orders, stop and search, surveillance and detention powers, is about to dismantle its Prevent Programme.
This £60 million programme had been widely criticised by community groups, not least because it appeared to place the whole Muslim community under suspicion and conflated community development work with intelligence gathering.
In October 2009 the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) produced a report based on interviews with thirty-two people and a consultation with community workers involved in delivering the Prevent Progamme.
It found that local authorities were receiving funding on the basis of the number of Muslims in their population, suggesting that the whole community was ‘suspect’; that funding decisions lacked transparency and accountability; that Prevent strategies could run counter to aspects of the community cohesion agenda; that those delivering Prevent were becoming increasingly wary of the expectations on them to provide the police with information on young Muslims and their religious and political opinions.
