An opportunity to “rename” Prevent as a more effective and fair counter-terrorism plan was missed “several years ago,” a senior City Hall official said.
Despite significant improvements in its work, the anti-radicalization scheme still struggles with a “public perception problem”, the official warned.
Prevent – a key element of the government’s broader counter-terrorism strategy – seeks to prevent people from becoming involved in terrorist activities and expose extremist ideologies.
But critics say it has eroded civil liberties and discriminated against Muslims. A recent government-backed report – the Shawcross Review – meanwhile found that the scheme “does not do enough to tackle nonviolent Islamist extremism”.
The comments about Prevent’s image came from Oliver Levinson, chief of the Countering Violent Extremism Division at the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC).
Speaking at a meeting of the London Assembly’s Police and Crime Committee on Wednesday, Mr Levinson said Prevent had done “a lot of good work that has changed and saved lives” but that it also had “shortcomings and failures” and struggled with “persevering mistrust and skepticism” from the public.
The question of how to improve Prevent’s reputation was posed by Liberal Democrat Assembly member Caroline Pidgeon.
“Isn’t there really a need for a refresh, [a] re-branding of Prevent, maybe call it something else?” she said.
“Because it’s a toxic brand in some ways, so how can you move that forward? Is that what is needed at this stage?”
Mr. Levinson replied, “I can give you an honest and personal answer to that. I think that would have been a good idea a few years ago. I think to some extent that ship has sailed.
“What I mean by that is you had a Prevent system several years ago that wasn’t nearly as effective, fair or equitable as it is now, and if we had then had that rebrand and produced what we have now, which is actually in essentially a pretty good system, [it may have worked].
“Prevent and channel [another safeguarding strategy] are pretty good things. They’re not perfect, but they’re pretty good stuff.
“Now you run the risk that the improvements have been implemented and that the association with the word ‘Prevent’ is still the problem. So I think it’s often a perception problem and I’m not sure that would solve the problem now.”
The plan’s recent Shawcross Review found that it “does not do enough to counter non-violent Islamist extremism”. The report, written by William Shawcross, said that while eight out of 10 conspiracy investigations nationwide were linked to Islamist causes, less than a fifth of Prevent’s national workload was in the same area.
Commander Dom Murphy, who heads the Metropolitan Police’s anti-terrorism division, said his team welcomed the Shawcross Review but “does not necessarily recognize all the recommendations as having implications for our daily London episode of Prevent”.
He added: “That’s not to say there aren’t things in there that I’m sure will help us frame Prevent in a slightly different way, or maybe present it in a different way”.
Mr Murphy said that in London most Prevent referrals were linked to Islamist activity – against the national trend identified by Shawcross.
Kenny Bowie, director of strategy at MOPAC, supported this point with data, saying: “The latest figures we have for this show that there were more than three times as many Prevent referrals in London linked to Islamist activity than there were for Extremely right [views].
“It was 384 to 122, so that would suggest they go, and they should go, where the threat is.”
In her response to Shawcross, Secretary of the Interior Suella Braverman said the Prevent program is “critical to preventing people from becoming involved in terrorism or supporting terrorism.”
She added that the assessment is “an essential part of ensuring that Prevent is fit for purpose and flexible enough to meet the threat we face”.