This week, UK Shadow home secretary Andy Burnham used his platform to wrongly attack the Government’s Prevent strategy, and even prescribed that Muslims should be allowed to bypass the police in the reporting of hate crimes.
In today’s climate of ‘post-truth politics’ it is important that we understand Prevent a little bit better to avoid proposing counter beneficial policies. In fact the Prevent strategy is grounded on the evidences of leading specialists, teachers and practitioners around the country and such facts are much more inclined in Prevents favour than Andy’s short time meetings and analysis.
Andy has badly misunderstood Prevent and ends up conflating it with hate crimes, yet reporting hate crimes, and preventing violent extremism are two separate things. While the first is a crime, where one has actually broken the law, Prevent only works within the pre-criminal space and safeguarding vulnerable individuals against violent extremism. The two are not even connected within the same strategy. [Quilliam Foundation] Read more
