The Guardian: Prevent treatment of autistic people ‘could be breaching UK equality laws’

The treatment of autistic people who are referred to the government’s deradicalisation scheme could be in breach of equality laws, a human rights charity has claimed.

The home secretary has been warned that Prevent and Channel, the multi-agency follow-on programme, which seek to identify people at risk of extremism, are overreporting neurodivergent people.

In a pre-action letter to the Home Office, Rights & Security International (RSI) said it was “deeply concerned about a potential ongoing failure to collect and analyse data on the protected characteristics of those referred to Prevent and that this constitutes an ongoing failure to comply with their public sector equality duty”.

There are concerns that autistic people are being referred to the authorities because of a lack of healthcare provision.

Read more on The Guardian.

Related…

Making autistic children an ‘extremism threat’ is that latest in the long list of Prevent harms (Expert View, 2025)

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