Prevent in Education
Prevent targets innocent people, making them suspects or ‘susceptible’ to ‘extremism’ by falsely linking legal ideas and beliefs to violence, outside of due process. Most of these individuals are under 18.
I was shocked because the meeting focussed entirely on my autistic son’s beliefs, not on his special needs and the support the school should provide under the EHCP. The deputy head said he had ‘extreme’ views. He said, ‘It’s about the way that he thinks.’
Cases in the Education Sector
A massive 80% of child referrals that we support come from the education sector.
This makes the securitisation of schools and educational discourse a core concern of our advocacy.
Our cases allow us to identify trends, build research, call out legal violations, and celebrate courage.
The “indicators of extremism” that underlie Prevent are common among children and young people, because they incorporate ordinary aspects of growing up and finding one’s way in a complex world, whilst also being religious and/or being concerned with current affairs.
The most recent Home Office statistics reveal that again, the largest portion of Prevent referrals happen at schools. This year, the Home Office has refined the age groups “to provide additional detail on the makeup of Prevent referrals”.
But what additional data is normalise the idea that children are a potential threat, so Prevent is a key tool in the increasing securitization of schools.
There are ways to challenge referrals, and we have the know-how to support you to do so.
It’s important to remember that this is a dynamic area. Because it is “pre-crime”, Prevent operates outside the rule of law. Each case is unique because lawyers need to find where a referral process abuses or breaks other laws.
Prevent’s pre-crime nature is harmful. For example, children can be questioned by counter-terrorism police, without the usual legal protections in place such as a having parent or guardian present. This can also be challenged.
“I mentioned the phrase ‘eco-terrorism’ in a discussion about saving the environment. I was then taken for questioning by two staff members in the ‘inclusion hut’. Suddenly, out of the blue, one of them asked me: ‘Do you have any affiliation with ISIS?’ That’s when I became really anxious.”
Expert Views
Prevent is especially harmful to young people
The existence of Prevent in education is largely due to the Birmingham Trojan Horse Affair. Since then, the presence of Prevent in education has been a legal duty linked to safeguarding.
As a result, teachers, lecturers and academic staff are compelled to report young people in their care who are judged to “be at risk of radicalisation” according to flawed and vague indicators that often criminalise religious beliefs, as our cases demonstrate.
Because of the weight Ofsted gives to safeguarding, this has placed students and teachers in a toxic dynamic that erodes the trust they both require for success.
Prevent also damages the reputation of safeguarding because it:
- Makes schools unsafe for students to fully express their beliefs and religious identity
- Securitises children, especially Muslim and autistic children
- Criminalises legal political ideas and views even at universities
- Opts for a policing approach to challenging behaviours rather than relying on proven existing policies
- It creates an environment of self-censorship, which can have a pressure cooker effect
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