Evidence to the UK parliamentary select committee inquiry on preventing violent extremism

In recent years, a number of European countries have widened their counter-terrorist policing agendas to include 'counter-radicalisation' policies aimed at preventing people from becoming violent extremists. The most systematic and elaborate of such policies is the UK government's Preventing Violent Extremism programme (known as 'Prevent'), which includes community development work among the general Muslim population of the UK, as well as efforts to identify persons considered to be 'vulnerable to radicalisation'. The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) has carried out research into Prevent and, in October 2009, published its findings in a report entitled Spooked: how not to prevent violent extremism (available at www.irr.org.uk/spooked). Here we republish the IRR's general conclusions which we submitted to the UK parliament's Communities and Local Government Select Committee inquiry into Prevent.