Page 50 - JUSTICE Tackling Racial Injustice - Children and the Youth Justice System

unfairly targeted, and a strong suspicion and fear of PREVENT. 148 with one
individual with whom we spoke saying that the Muslim community had “lost
all faith” in the programme, with some believing that PREVENT is used to
“give people permission to hate Muslims” and it “risks being used to target
young Muslim people.” 149 However, there are positive views of the programme
as well, with one member of a PREVENT Advisory Group (PAG) stating, “we
believe the PAG partnership is extremely useful and helpful as seen at times
of great emergencies as well as for promoting common understanding on issues
of common concern”. 150

2.57 The majority of complaints appear to relate to the referrals process. There is a
significant and disproportionate representation of Muslim children and young
adults referred to PREVENT, relative to the proportion of Muslim children and
young adults in the school and college-age population, 151 with 60% of children
referred to PREVENT within school in 2016 being Muslim. 152 Recent data has
shown that, in the year ending March 2020, there were a total of 6287 referrals,
54% of which were under the age of 20. 153 Moreover, following the
introduction of the section 26 duty, 154 a number of inappropriate referrals were
made to PREVENT, including a nursery which considered reporting a four-

148 Qurashi, F. The Prevent strategy and the UK ‘war on terror’: embedding infrastructures of
surveillance in Muslim communities. Palgrave Commun 4, 17 (2018).

149 D. Parker, D. Chapot and J. Davis, ‘The Prevent Strategy’s Impact on Social Relations: a report on
work in two local authorities,’ Feminist Dissent 2019, 4, p. 160-193.
150 Ibid.
151 P. Thomas, ‘Britain’s Prevent Strategy: Always Changing, Always the Same?’ in: J. Busher, L.
Jerome (eds), The Prevent Duty in Education, Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.
152 The Muslim Council of Britain, The impact of Prevent on Muslim communities: a briefing to the
Labour Party on how British Muslim communities are affected by counter-extremism policies, (2016).
153 Home Office, ‘Individuals referred to and supported through the Prevent Programme, April 2019 to
March 2020’, November 2020.
154 Section 26 of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 places a duty on certain bodies, such as
local authorities, schools, prisons, police, and healthcare providers, to have “due regard to the need to
prevent people from being drawn into terrorism” in the exercise of their functions. Although it aims to
address all forms of terrorism, its main focus, when implemented, was on those associated with Al
Qa’ida.

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