Prevent Strategy: Helping the Vulnerable Being Drawn Towards Terrorism or Another Layer of State Surveillance?

Prevent Strategy is a collection of work from practitioners – youth workers and the police – and academics researching Prevent. This book examines overcoming the stigma attached to Prevent being implicitly racist, problems related to the section 26 duty, training staff on Prevent, creating safe spaces to have open discussions, problems regarding extremists’ online activity, and the law surrounding freedom of expression.

Since its introduction, the UK’s Prevent strategy has been surrounded with controversy ranging from making the Muslim community a dangerous ‘suspect community’ to being another layer of police surveillance on individuals who have not been arrested or convicted of a crime. Despite amendments to the strategy – which now covers all forms of extremism – and adopting a multi-agency approach, these suspicions remain, exacerbated by the section 26 Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 duty on specified authorities to prevent vulnerable people being drawn towards terrorism.

This book's findings on the Prevent strategy will be an invaluable tool for staff in education, the health service, and the criminal justice agencies who carry out the section 26 duty. It will also appeal to academics and students studying the area of terrorism and security.

David Lowe is a retired police officer and is currently a senior research fellow at Leeds Beckett University Law School researching terrorism & security, policing and criminal law. He has many publications in this area including his recent books ‘Terrorism and State Surveillance of Communication’ and ‘Terrorism: Law and Policy’, both published by Routledge. David is regularly requested to provide expert commentary to UK national and international mainstream media on issues related to his research areas.

Robin Bennett is a Graduate Teaching Assistant at Leeds Law School at Leeds Beckett University. Robin is currently in the final year of his PhD which analyses questions in relation to the impact of Prevent on academics and students in university law schools. Prior to joining Leeds Beckett, Robin completed his LLB at the University of Bradford and worked for a short time as a barrister’s clerk at a leading set of chambers in the North of England.