Prevent Watch

People's Review of Prevent

The People's Review of Prevent

The People’s Review of Prevent is an alternative review to the Government Shawcross Review.

This review provides a voice to the people most impacted by the Prevent Duty.
Prevent is described as ‘safeguarding’ children from harms. However, under Prevent, safeguarding is focused on protecting the wider public from children believed to be ‘risky’, rather than protecting children from harms.

Throughout our report we present case studies that show how real these harms can be and the distress they cause to children and their families and carers.

Middle East Eye: Shawcross Prevent reforms risk ‘slide into authoritarianism’, critics warn

The UK is facing a “slide into dangerous authoritarianism” if the government proceeds with the recommendations of a contentious review of Prevent, critics of the strategy have warned. In a joint letter issued on Tuesday, a coalition of civil society organisations including Amnesty International, Liberty, and a wide range of Muslim community groups called for the withdrawal of the review, which Suella Braverman, the home secretary, has already pledged to implement in full. William Shawcross’s review, published last month after years of delays, called for Prevent to prioritise the threat from Islamist extremism over far-right extremism, and said that confronting Islamist narratives should be a “principal component of Prevent activity”. Shawcross accused some critics of Prevent of themselves being “radicalising influences”, and suggested there was a “concerted campaign… to undermine and delegitimise” the programme. They said: “Despite raising legitimate evidence-based concerns, critics of Prevent have been ignored and smeared. One

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