A conceptual critique of Prevent: Can Prevent be saved? No, but…

Abstract

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.

A moral education? British Values, colour-blindness, and preventing terrorism

“…To conclude this first section, we found BV to be subsumed within a wider discourse of moral education, with emphasis on respect and tolerance and less attention paid to other, more politically oriented BVs. This complements Skoczylis and Andrews’ findings that Prevent (and by association, the BV curriculum) should be seen more as an ideological apparatus aimed at producing the ‘right kind of subjects’, rather than a simple counterterrorism policy (2019: 6). The idea of moral values as complex, politically charged, and contested was negated by a view of BVs as fixed, objective, and unquestionable.…”

Deprivation, instability, and propensity to attack: how urbanization influences terrorism

“…Any form of group discrimination is a powerful cause of frustration, anger, and, hence, extremism and terrorism (Geifman 2005;Skoczylis and Andrews 2020). In this research, we consider gender, religious, and ethnic discrimination as the most common types.…”