Preventing Violent Extremism

This article is part of the Counter-Terrorism Portal project of Spinwatch.

The Preventing Violent Extremism Programme is the official name given to the Prevent strand of the British government's counter-terrorism strategy known as Contest 2. It is sometimes abbreviated as PVE.

It is managed and funded by the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Foreign Office, the Police services and the Home Office and its affiliates, such as the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism and the Research, Information and Communications Unit.

The programme - currently being reviewed by the coalition government - has faced a barrage of accusations that it is a spying programme being used to collate intelligence on the Muslim community.

Objectives

The fundamental objectives of PVE are to engage and work with Muslim communities to:

• Undermine extremist voices and ideologies so that mainstream voices can speak for the majority of Muslims, who are peaceful and law-abiding citizens

• Disrupt those who promote violence as a methodology for change by strengthening moderate voices and their ability to counter the simplistic arguments and solutions to perceived and real grievances.

• Work with law-enforcement agencies, communities and community leaders to help bring back individuals who may be showing signs of radicalisation and/or extremism through programmes such as the Preventing Violent Extremism Pathfinder Fund

• Strengthen the Muslim community as a whole to counter the ideas and beliefs of extremists

• Address the grievances that extremists may use to justify their arguments and actions, such as the Iraq war.

Prevent's two supporting objectives, which are not well publicised are:

• to develop supporting intelligence, analysis and information, and

• improve Strategic Communications

Police Objectives

According to an ACPO Terrorism Allied Matters restricted document posted on the Indymedia UK website, the Police' role regarding the objectives of PREVENT are as follows:

ACPO diagram showing the place of the following elements of the Prevent strategy: Rich Picture, Operation Delphinus, Operation Nicole, MAPPA, Channel Project

Objective 1: Undermine Extremist Ideology

The Police aim to work toward undermining the extremist ideology and narrative so that the the pro-governmental narrative can have "greater prominence and credibility". They are trying to use this objective to "improve [their] knowledge of [Muslim] communities and how this community functions both in a social and religious context." The Police have made "considerable progress" in communicating with Muslim community groups, especially through "neighbourhood policing", which is supported by "Intelligence and Community Engagement". They aim to maximise "neighbourhood policing" for the purpose of "neighbourhood mapping", a process which includes "[c]ollecting a range of information about Muslim communities in order to enhance understanding of their needs and their dynamics to equip the police with the ability to target their activities and engagements more effectively.

Objective 2: Disrupt Promoters of Violent Extremism

The Police aim to disrupt those that promote and advocate violent extremism, whilst strengthening those institutions that are vulnerable to being taken over and/or controlled by extremists. Universities and Schools are where a substantial element of work regarding this matter is carried out, in conjunction with partner institutions, such as the Department for Universities, Innovation and Skills (DIUS) and the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF). The Police aim to educate parents about what constitutes legal and illegal activity on the internet and aim to develop advice and guidance on internet usage related to violent extremism. They also aim to establish links with institutions such as Mosques, sports centres, youth clubs, gyms and bookshops to ensure that Muslim youth's are not recruited to the ideology of violent extremism. This is accompanied by work which is done in prisons The police share information and intelligence with the security services - MI5 and MI6 - and relevant governmental departments on "key individuals".

Objective 3: Support Individuals that are Vulnerable to Radicalisation:

The Police aim to create "mechanisms" for supporting people they consider vulnerable to radicalisation "to see and follow positive and compelling alternatives to violent extremist activity." The Police aim to develop strong links with communities, local authorities, Youth Offending Teams, Schools and Colleges. One of the major mechanisms for Police interventions is the Channel Project, which "takes referrals from a number of sources on individuals of concern who are exhibiting behaviours indicating a vulnerability or identification with extremism ideologies ... A programme of intervention tailored to the needs of the individual is then developed and implemented with regular reviews of progress".

Uncertain Objectives

According to a PVE Pathfinder Fund Report published by the DCLG, which mapped a total of 261 PVE projects activities in 2007/08 for nine English regions it stated that:

"Over two-fifths of all projects across England sought to challenge the violent extremist ideology and support mainstream voices (Objective 1) and develop understanding, analysis and evaluation (Objective 6, 48% and 44% respectively)"

Table 1: This graph shows the number of PVE Pathfinder Projects that were focused on either of the 7 objectives of Prevent

According to the wording of the official British counter-terrorism Strategy - CONTEST, the purpose of Objective 6 is

"...to: develop supporting intelligence, analysis and information...".

All the projects that were carried out under the PVE Pathfinder Fund in the South-West of England (a total of 3) were categorised by the DCLG Report as assisting in the the delivery of "Objective 6".

Criticisms

• In October 2009, The Guardian reported that Preventing Violent Extremism was being used "to gather intelligence" on "political and religious views, information on mental health, sexual activity and associates, and other sensitive information" on people that are "not suspected of involvement in terrorism". The Director of the Human Rights organisation Liberty, Shami Chakrabarti, "branded [PVE] as the biggest spying programme in Britain in modern times and an affront to civil liberties".

• The Director of the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism responded to spying allegations to a PVE Select Committee Hearing by stating:

“For the avoidance of doubt, surveillance is not part of the Prevent programme and intelligence gathering is not a feature of the Prevent programme. It does not say so in the strategy and does not say so in our guidance documents. What we have said is what you get.”

According to Arun Kundnani of the Institute of Race Relations, "the Prevent programme, in effect, constructs the Muslim population as a ‘suspect community’, fosters social divisions among Muslims themselves and between Muslims and others, encourages tokenism, facilitates violations of privacy and professional norms of confidentiality, discourages local democracy and is counter-productive in reducing the risk of political violence.

Despite the criticisms of Prevent, Ed Husain of the Quilliam Foundation, an organisation which is responsible for advising the government on extremism, publicly supported the government's spying programme on innocent people and believed that it was "morally right to give law enforcement agencies the best chance of stopping terrorists before they strike".

Funding

The following are the funding streams of Preventing Violent Extremism:

• Preventing Violent Extremism Pathfinder Fund
• Community Leadership Fund
• Challenge and Innovation Fund
• Preventing Extremism Together

See Also

CONTEST | CONTEST 2 | Counter-Terrorism Timeline | Scottish Preventing Violent Extremism Unit (SPVEU) | Project Rich Picture | Prevent Funding