In a recent piece by CARR Policy and Practitioner Fellow William Baldet, who is a CVE (Countering Violent Extremism) practitioner in his day to day job, he argues that ‘all individuals who are at risk should be supported’ from being drawn into terrorism. His reference to Kieron’s story, a 15-year-old boy for whom Prevent intervention was too late, indeed suggests that not enough is being done. I agree – but not about the same thing.
In positioning myself as a critical scholar of Prevent, I do not see my role as one who should critique and vilify the agenda, but one who should challenge the norms and narratives that underpin it. This, for some anti-Prevent activists is simply not enough. For others, more pro-Prevent if you like, this critical lens is counter-productive and will never see the good in Prevent. I suggest that, instead, a critical lens enables us to do exactly what William advocates for in his piece – to understand ‘our responsibilities in relation to the Terrorism Act’ and Prevent.
These responsibilities, I argue, are not only towards those who find themselves subject, or vulnerable, to an ever-widening net of Prevent-related concerns, but also those who are at the centre, or the first point of call, in establishing who that net is for and those who end up caught up in it. I respond to William’s piece then, in arguing that his notion of ‘oversimplifying’ risk as ideology and the subsequent broadening of Prevent’s scope that this entails, might well work in preventing the Kieron’s of the world from ‘the shadow of a criminal conviction’ in theory, but in practice, for some, ‘interventions and support to all individuals’ simply doesn’t exist.
