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The UK’s Prevent policy continues to fail in its fundamental purpose to prevent extremism and has at times even created spaces where extremism flourishes. This article goes beyond the mechanism of implementation providing a conceptual understanding of how Prevent maintains the neoliberal status quo. The promotion of the neoliberal status quo, depoliticisation and a lack of focus on root causes continue to undermine Prevent. Any policy aimed at preventing extremism and terrorism must be well integrated into the government’s wider social policies, shifting away from securitisation and towards improving society. Reducing extremism becomes a by-product of a much broader attempt at changing society, focusing on policies that address racism, gender and socio-economic inequality. These policies, we argue, must encourage political engagement with all groups, especially marginalised ones. Creating a healthier democracy will reduce risks of extremism and will negate the need for a Prevent policy based on discrimination and securitisation.

During the 2019 Christchurch attack, the perpetrator livestreamed footage from a helmet-mounted camera. The aesthetic similarity of the attack footage to first-person shooter (FPS) videogames has led to speculation that this might have somehow ‘gamified’ the attack. Generally, the argument for this is that the attack footage (1) imitates or resembles FPS games, gamifying attacks (2) increasing the affective appeal of propaganda by presenting it as play and thereby (3) increasing the salience of these attacks within gaming communities. This article challenges these notions. It argues that the FPS genre should not be associated with such footage due to visual similarity and is better considered in relation to film. The idea that such footage was purposefully shot to look like an FPS is unsupported, and more likely the result of practical considerations. While the framework of gamification might be useful, it should rest on interactivity, rather than aesthetic similarity.

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The work of Louis Althusser is well regarded in the study of ideology, having been used to analyse the material basis for ideology, and challenging the idea that ideology is simply a product of the mind. Recent advances in counterterrorism have seen many states adopting preventative programmes which are non-violent, and nominally voluntary, attempting to deradicalise or steer subjects away from radical ideologies, in an attempt to stem terrorist recruits. Many of these programmes claim not to be ideological. Prevent, which is the UK’s preventative counterterrorism programme, claims not to be ideological, but rather only concerned with stopping extremist ideologies. Using Althusser’s Ideological State Apparatus (ISA) framework, this article explores the ideological and material basis of Prevent, arguing that while Prevent assures us of its non-ideological nature, at its core is a programme that is part of the reproductive ideological apparatus of the state.