Augusta DellÕOmo: Welcome to Right Rising a Podcast from the Center for the Analysis of the Radical Right. I'm your host Augusta DellÕOmo. Today, I'm joined by Natalie James, a doctoral candidate in the School of Politics and International Studies at University of Leeds. She's here with us today to talk about the United Kingdom's Prevent Duty and how it's been used to counter the radical right. Natalie, thanks for being here. 

Natalie James: Hi, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me. 

AD: So Natalie, for most of our listeners, they may not be familiar with the United Kingdom's Prevent Duty. Can you tell us what it is and what it does? 

NJ: Yeah. So the Prevention Team came out in 2015, but it's part of a broader UK counter-terrorism strategy called ÒCONTEST.Ó Now this emerged in around about 2003, but was legislated from 2006 onwards. Now CONTEST has four main strands. So it has the ÒpreparedÓ strand, the ÒpreventÓ strand, the ÒprotectÓ strand, and the ÒpursueÓ strand. The prevent strand of became the, um, the pillar for CONTEST as it were. So that was the main strategy that the government seemed to focus on now it has been in full being part of the UK strategy since 2003.

But as I say, it legislated in 2006 and Prevent One so-called was around about 06 to 11. That was a predominantly community base program. So CONTEST would sorry, PREVENT was being concerned with going into communities, using community based initiatives and organizations to try and spot anyone who might be potentially becoming radicalized and to try and prevent that through community-based initiatives. Now, some of them were covert and some of them are overt. Um, and that's kind of where some of the criticism lie, which led to what some people call Prevent Two. So the second phase of Prevent from around about 2011 onwards, and that was more where the government switch the focus from being around those community based programs, to being more about this idea of people being vulnerable to extremist and terrorist narratives. So being vulnerable to becoming radicalized. And the focus was therefore placed on what risk people had been vulnerable and what risks could be prevented. 

And as part of that, as Prevent then developed, um, the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act was introduced in 2015. Now that is the act that then brought in the Prevent Duty as it were. So this is still around the idea of preventing vulnerability of preventing risks to extremism and terrorism. But what it did was it mandated the requirement for people to show, due regard to preventing people from becoming engaged in those spheres. So essentially it made it a legal requirement. It made people responsible for spotting that vulnerability and limiting that risk by safeguarding it. Now, what that involves in practice is essentially that any public sector worker became effectively an agent of the state, but it was their responsibility within that working environment, within which they came into contact with members of the public, that they should spot any vulnerability and then understand if it was potential for radicalization. And if it was that they would refer that to a program called Channel. Now Channel is essentially, sorry, a government label, a multi-agency safeguarding process. So again, using that language of vulnerability, their idea is somebody say a doctor or a teacher, which is in my case of my research. Would see someone who was potentially vulnerable to radicalization, we'd prefer them into Channel this multi-agency safeguarding hub, And then Channel will then consider whether or not that person needed support. And essentially what that then meant meant was they were provided with what the government term, a Òwraparound package of support.Ó So if, for example, that person who was potentially able to become radicalized, because of their vulnerability, this agency, the safeguarding hub channel would then say, okay, well, what are those vulnerabilities? It might be that that person is perhaps needs housing that there in a, perhaps a fluid situation where they don't have secure housing. They might have, for example, so, um, disability or a mental health concern that is, that deems them vulnerable or at risk, they may also have kind of what, because might term a of foreign affairs or foreign policy, uh, those sorts of things that can mean a whole range of things. 

And what Channel would then do is put into place this wraparound package of support by they say, okay, well, if there's a housing need, then we get housing agency involved. If there is a, um, uh, an educational need, we get the educational sector involved. If there's a social services need, if we get them involved, et cetera, et cetera. And what Channel basically does is assess whether somebody is vulnerability is just say a housing need, in which case it passes it on to the housing agency, or if it does have those multiple different prongs, which might then make someone vulnerable to becoming radicalized.

So essentially it's, is there a program that now makes it mandatory that people spot that and then refer it to this Channel agency to, to decide if they need support. So essentially what it means is that counter-terrorism has become a responsibility of everyone within the public sector. So it's kind of one of the first of its kind, the policy itself, where it basically is saying that counter-terrorism, isn't just a measure that the government take it. Isn't just a measure for security services, for the police. Actually, what it is now is a measure of that everybody in their everyday lives and that everyday practices for everybody to prevent people from becoming radicalized and engaged in terrorism and extremism. 

AD: Thanks for that great overview, Natalie. And I really liked one of the phrases that you use to describe this process as Òeverybody now becomes an agent of the state,Ó like you said, This, this Prevent Duty now asks any public servant to have an active role in counter-terrorism, counter-extremism in their own communities. And I think we'll get more into some of the responses to this and the application of this in a little bit later in the podcast, but I did want to ask you what motivated the passage of the Prevent Duty? Was there, were there specific events that triggered this or was it a, um, a wider conversation about the state of counter-terrorism work and preventative measures in the United Kingdom?

NJ: Yeah. So essentially a bit of both, um, quite frankly, it depends on who you talk to. So government perspective is, yeah. This kind of response to a shift in environment, a shifting kind of threat, um, the need to protect vulnerability and, you know, for some critics that kind of essentially the government saying we got it wrong, which in some of that legislation they do. And they say, you know, that previous focus on communities did not work and we need to change that and the Duty was kind of a response to that. It was a way of the government saying, you know, it's not just about looking for certain people in certain communities, actually. It's about preventing everyone from becoming engaged in any form of extremism-terrorism, which is the language that they use.  So from that perspective, it was about at its core, protecting everyone's vulnerability. And it was in response to the need to do that.
From a critic's perspective, it was about expanding this kind of idea of data capture, securitization, particularly of Muslim communities who had been largely impacted by the earlier iterations of Prevent, which what I'm sure we'll get into at some point. But essentially a lot of critics said that actually, hang on a minute, this is just an extension of the state. This is just the stage one to responsiblize, securitize. Not only the people who are targeted by the policy, but those who are now legally mandated to enforce it as well. 

Now, slight nuance in my own research is from some people they said it was kind of a response to the, um, the events at the time, after the Arab Spring that with the rise of DAISH, um, and people kind of a recognition from security services as well there was a shift in not the, not necessarily the ideology, but the individuals who were becoming engaged in ideology. One of my participants talks about this idea that previously and earlier iterations of Prevent ,people that they were looking for, where the individuals who on the road were becoming radicalized in quiet in isolated spaces and kind of online forums. And it was individuals who were becoming radicalized and going off to engage in that as a terrorism and extremism. But what the Prevent Duty kind of responded to was actually a shift in that. Where, powerful propaganda and media outlets were really selling this idea of a statehood and families being able to respond to that and engage in that.

And for one of my participants, actually the Duty came in in response to that shift where it wasn't individuals going anymore, but it was entire families and those families shifting their own families off to Iraq or Syria. Um, for others, it was simply about bringing this consistency of approach. And so this idea that, you know, if we're going to protect against vulnerability, let's make sure everyone's protecting all the time, different types of vulnerability. And let's make sure that they're doing that consistently. So really it's instigation is, is quite heavily contested. It depends on who you speak to, especially, it depends on if you're a critic or an advocate of Prevent. But essentially what we can kind of take from it is that the was a recognition, whether or not that wants to be a, it needs to be deconstructed or not is another matter. But the was a recognition that there was a shift in the way that people were becoming radicalized. And there was also a need to shift away from this individual community basis to addressing all forms of extremism and ergo addressing potentially everyone's potential for vulnerability. 

AD: I think that was a really fantastic summary of a really complex array of questions about how do you prevent extremism. Um, I really appreciate that you brought up the point about how this community approach has really disproportionately targeted Muslim communities and so it's really interesting to trace how the UKÕs legislation on this has changed as well. And this question of social services and how we should deploy social services to counter extremism in all its forms is something that I think more and more people are starting to reconcile and grapple with, as we really start to think about what causes social ills and social unrest in our societies. 

So now that we've talked through what the Prevent Duty is and the beginnings of, the origins of the Prevent Duty really, what have you seen from your research has been the response from the Prevent Duty from various groups in the United Kingdom? So thinking about communities that are overly policed, perhaps like Muslim communities, but also security services, or even in the mainstream media? What do you think people have responded to the Prevent Duty with?

NJ: Yeah. I mean, again, it's a complete mixed bag. Um, if you're talking about the early years when Prevent, when the Duties first came in around 2015, 16, there was real concerns about it. Really was, a lot of that stems back to that disproportionality around Muslim communities You effectively there, where the government was seen to be mandating to make it legal requirements for people to refer this same policy. It's it really entrenched in this longstanding policy where effectively it was Muslim communities who are massively impacted by this. And it's been evidence in numerous studies where the disproportionality towards Muslim individuals has had absolutely dire consequences. And there was a real fear that this was only going to entrench that it was only going to make it worse. So there was huge concern around that. 

On the other end of the spectrum, there was, you know, there was kind of a, an almost welcome approach where people were kind of happy that the government had recognized that there was this need to shift towards all forms of extremism and terrorism. Um, but then there was many in the middle of you were concerned about whether that would actually come to fruition. Would this kind of shift where um, especially public sector workers who aren't trained in this, radicalization experts or extremist expertsÉ

AD: Yeah. I think that's such a critical point. You know, you're asking people to become experts on something that, you know, that's not in their job description is enforcing the Prevent Duty.

NJ: Exactly. No, it was just another thing to add to the list of why people were so genuinely concerned about this. Over the last couple of years, we've kind of seen that what's called the fear of a chilling effect, um, around, particularly within educational spaces, which is where my research is based, around the potential for this to have a chilling effect on academic freedom on people's ability to enact the Duty professionally, but also to not have it a dire impact on the communities and the individuals with which this policy was concerned with.

But there has in the last few, couple of years has been a slight shift where, uh, you know, as a result of research, that's coming out well, we're seeing that that's not entirely been the case. There are pockets where that of course happens and that of course is hugely problematic. Um, but that people are able to sort of engage with the Duty on levels that we didn't anticipate at the beginning of this. So where there was those real concerns around criticism, and then there was. Those who were really advocating and pushing forward for it. We're almost seen a bit of a meet in the middle with the research that's coming through now, which is kind of where my research fits quite nicely. 

AD: Let's keep going then about your research. So as I would call you an expert on the Prevent Duty, what questions did you have when you begin your research? 

NJ: And so I'm sure as you can imagine, my biggest concern was okay, if these people have this requirement, this legal duty thing to spot potential vulnerabilities to radicalization, and refer that, who is it that they're referring? You know, have these disproportionate impacts of the policies in its earlier iterations and Prevent One and Prevent Two, have they followed through in the Prevent Duty?

So my biggest concern when I began the research was, is this, is there still a disproportionate impact essentially on Muslim individuals? The context that I looked in came from a more personal angle. So when I was started to thinking about the research, um, a family member actually said to me, oh yeah, I know about the Prevent Duty, hang on, how on earth do you know about the Prevent Duty?

Exactly. You can imagine my face at the time. Um, they responded and said, yeah, I'm now mandated to do it. And I just couldn't understand it at the time. I couldn't get my head around this person who, no disrespect to them as a family member, but I could not get my head around their capacity to spot vulnerabilities of radicalization and refer that without any bias, but also without any expertise, how else would they do that? So that's kind of where my research began with this concern around an increase in focus and, um, on the everyday of counter-terrorism and how that impacted on communities, which had already been massively disproportionately impacted. But then on the other side of it, how on earth, people who weren't experts were meant to then spot that. 

AD: I think those two, those two questions that you were wrestling with, I think are the right questions to be asking about these issues and I think a lot about when you were talking about these questions of how are people possibly trained to refer people to the right resources, but also how are they choosing to identify it Uh, people who are, you know, quote unquote, vulnerable to radicalization. I think a lot about the, you know, the over-policing the, uh, the over, um, punishing of children, specifically Black and Brown children in American schools. You know, there's so many questions of, of bias and reporting that, that go into these kinds of duties. So from your research, what are your, what were the major findings that came out of your study? 

NJ: So, which, is where some of this ambiguity comes from that was earlier talking about. It was strange. I started off and on the research is very much based in a critical, um, perspective as well, but I very much started off from that critical voice thinking, ÒI know what I'm going to find here. I'm going to find that there is a disproportionate impact against Muslim students, and that there's bias. That is, you know, emanating from all of the experiences that I collect.Ó Um, Honestly, it wasn't quite as straightforward as that. Um, there is no easy right or wrong yes or no answer with the findings that I came across. Um, and I'll kind of, I think I'll, I'll have a go at of covering some of those main findings and we will come back to that disproportionality and see why I'm saying that it's quite ambiguous and it's not quite as straightforward as the originally I thought it would be. 

But essentially what I found was that. This narrative of vulnerability actually sat really well in education institutions expected with their existing discourses. It embedded well with our existing practices. You know, educationalists have always protected against vulnerability. You know, whether that's against, um, child sexual exploitation, whether that's against drugs or crime, or gangs or any of those things, they've always done this. So vulnerability was something that they were very, very much used to already. So that kind of narrative fit really, really well. And actually what I found, which is in line with quite a lot of them, the literature that's coming out in the sort of the last 12 to 24 months and it's emerging at the moment, is it in this narrative of vulnerability, vulnerability prevention is actually really well accepted within education institutions.

It was a fit into their existing practices. It worked with the narratives that they had, and it was just seen as an extension of their existing responsibilities. So in that case, it was a bit of a shock currently that, you know, what I thought would be so different from their existing practices is actually quite well embedded. Now, of course, there's nuances in that and there's experiences where people didn't quite have that level of acceptance, but on the whole, the vast majority did understand or did kind of accept that the Duty is just an extension of our safeguarding practices against vulnerability.  So in that case, then this process of referral that I earlier mentioned around referring into Channel. That mechanism was therefore already, already embedded in institutions. They were already used to spotting something they were concerned with, passing it up the Channel within the institution, and then passing it out to those external institutions or agencies that again was an existing practice. So in that sense, the Prevent Duty didn't really offer anything much different there.

However, I will caveat that as well by saying that there are a few places where that doesn't quite work. So in one instance, for example, there was a lot more difficulty and more challenges faced in terms of Prevent Duty when it came to engaging with those external mechanisms. And that largely was because in the case of the Prevent Duty, unlike any other form of vulnerability, a lot of the individuals who I spoke to found that measuring the level of threshold for what warrants, what constitutes a referral, was actually much more difficult to determine in cases of radicalization. And that was because of lack of knowledge, you know, bias kind of the overarching media narratives. But also because of the sheer sense that basically they felt that the systems were overwhelmed as well. You know, a third of the referrals within the Prevent system come from the education sector. And there was a feeling that there was quite a lot going out, not necessarily all of it, perhaps meeting the thresholds that Prevent agency felt was, was kind of in place versus what the safeguarding, um, officers felt was, was, was kind of their threshold. So the two weren't necessarily always meeting up. 

From a teaching perspective, um, there was kind of concerned in terms of referral whether or not that bias that overarching bias did influence what they were, who they were referring, and what they were seeing as potentially vulnerability to radicalization. And then on the student level, the research finds that actually that was quite problematic. So whilst they accepted this idea that people needed safeguarding, who were vulnerable. To them, identifying that was really quite concerning where essentially a lot of it surrounded the fear of the consequences of doing so. The fear of the individual, what might happen to them, but also the fear for themselves. You know what what's going to happen to me, if I refer someone and either I'm wrong, either they find out that I've referred them. Or, if I do refer them, you know, is there any, is there going to be any comeback on me and students were really worried about that. So even though they all accepted and they all kind of understood that Prevent was about safeguarding vulnerability, when it came to those practices of referral, that might be something that was familiar to them. But actually in the case of the Duty, it was something that had some, you know, real considerations that they had to take into their decision as to whether or not to participate in that. 

And then one of the other aspects of it, which I've not mentioned yet is around this idea of British values. So with the Prevent Duty came not only this process of referral, but within education institutions specifically, was this requirement to embed and promote the idea of British values. Now I've wrote about this for CARR before, um, this notion that, um, values such as democracy, liberty, um, and which is just, you know, it says everything. I can't even remember what the four of them are off the top of my head all the time. It says exactly what they are. But these values of basically what a lot of my participants said were human values, universal values, they werenÕt specifically British. But with this label of British came this notion of Britishness who can be British, who can hold these values and the way that this was kind of introduced in line with extremism and terrorism. So i.e. you know, refer those who you think are extremist or who you think are kind of vulnerable to become an extremist or terrorist, but at the same time, promote a British idea of values. The two were quite challenging with one another, which is one of the things I want to pick up on in later research and developed this idea. But for a lot of people, that's sense of having to install a sense of Britishness alongside a need to counter extremist and terrorist ideologies through referring vulnerability, really presented a challenge where actually are we preventing all forms of extremism and terrorism here? Or are we just preventing Islamist inspired? Because a lot of the participants the far right, actually was upheld, their kind of ideas and narratives were upheld by this sense of Britishness.

So it was a real interesting and complex paradox where you've got teachers who are required to refer people, but also required to instill a sense of Britishness that they felt fed into a far-right ideology. And this is kind of one of the key things that comes out is that underpinning on all of these concerns, was this idea that ultimately the Prevent Duty was still informed by those earlier iterations. Those earlier concerns around the securitization of Islam and the securitization of Muslim communities. And until that was properly challenged that the Duty and any sort of any program that came after, it was always going to be predominantly based on preventing Islamist forms of extremism and terrorism. Because you've got that history there, people are bias as a result of it, and their attempts to try and include all forms of terrorism and extremism, you know, were recognized by people don't get me wrong. And in some cases, people were doing a really good job at trying to integrate them. But because of this wider discourse, their efforts were continuously underlined, and that sense of Britishness that came through British values only served to emanate that only served to enhance that kind of narrative around Islamist inspired terrorism that was there. And it was a real complex interplay of experiences that were going on within the research. And I hope I've done it justice in explaining how that plays between this notion of a referral and British values, but it essentially meant that they just didn't feel that the far right were included in this idea of preventing all forms of extremism and terrorism when you just have this overarching narrative of, of prejudice against Muslims and Islam. 

AD: No, I think Natalie, I mean, I think you summed up your findings incredibly well, and I think you really captured the complexity of what people are being asked to do under the Prevent Duty and all of the different ways that this can go awry. I mean, the contrast that you're showing, you're setting up between educators, who a lot of times are very comfortable, reporting and finding different services for their students, trying to help them, you know, at a baseline level, you have this idea that educators want to make their students' lives better. And they're being put in these impossible situations. I think the point that you drew out about what happens when you become a mandatory reporter, there's concerns for what happens to their students, once they've reported them into the system and how all of this gets caught up in these ideas of Britishness and these ideas about who fits as you said, who counts as British, and what kinds of extremism counts in this definition?
I think all of that is so important to contextualize how the Prevent Duty not only was created, but how it is deployed now. And how do you think your research should impact the way that we think about and use the Prevent Duty moving forward? 

NJ: Yeah, I think, you know, in that there's a real need to recognize as well, that policy isn't policy isn't just policy. You know, policy becomes an enacted. It becomes lived, it becomes experienced. It becomes what that person makes of it. And when I say that, that doesn't, you know, that as you heard with the findings, it doesn't take away from the fact that there are serious issues here, underpinning on the policy around those stigmatizations and, and you know who it is that the policy encourages people to effectively try and spot. There are real issues with that put in that there is also the recognition that in educators spotting these issues, they're doing a really, really difficult complex, but also really admirable role in trying to negotiate those difficult discourses that they are surrounded by. And we need to recognize the, the efforts made by them, but also the limitations that surround them. And if the Prevent Duty is going to continue, which I have no, I have no question that it, well it's, I think it's a policy that is here to stay for the long run, but if it is government, security agencies, whomever, even, you know, down to the ground level of these people who are implementing it needs to recognize that individuals really do play a huge role in how the Prevent Duty becomes enacted and how it becomes employed in these instances. And not just in education instance has gone across the public sector. They play a really, really critical role. And it is about that person being potentially knowledgeable or, or potentially, um, able to fulfill that role. 

But it's also about recognizing the huge limitations that are placed on them in doing that. You know, these people have got all the things that they need to do Ð thereÕs curriculums, you need to teach, thereÕs, you know, this illnesses, they need to spot. If they're in the health profession, this is an extremely, extremely small part of their role. But if you're going to make it mandatory by God, please make them, you know, prepare them enough to be able to do that. Give them the tools that they require in order to negotiate and manage these really complex situations and contexts that they find themselves in where we, as researchers, who've spent years and years engaging with this discourse, still have trouble, you know, with deconstructing it and engaging with it. And let's not ask them to do that, but let's ask ourselves what we could do to help them understand and negotiate and try to navigate those discourses that really are so embedded in what has become an everyday practice for these individuals. 

AD: Thanks so much for that, Natalie. And I think that's such an important note to end on because it's not just policy, as you said, it's lived experiences and lived actions for many people who are trying to improve the communities that they live in. I think there's a real push for people to be accountable to the individuals in their community. I think there's a real push from education, I'm thinking about the United States context on questions of sexual assault and racism, and really having mechanisms so people can make changes in their community. But if there's, not the right kinds of training, and I think even more importantly, transparency about what we can actually do to help people, once they've been, you know, reported to use the language of the Prevent Duty, it becomes really murky and very difficult for people to feel like they can use this mandatory reporting in a way that's actually making their communities better. 

So, I wanted to thank you again for joining us today and, um, for our listeners, can they find your work online? Where can they connect with you to hear more about the kinds of work that you're doing? 

NJ: Yeah, so they can find, um, I've just got a chapter published in a book which has come out at ÒThe Prevent Duty and EducationÓ it's open access, so anyone could get their hands on it. Um, and, uh, one of my chapters, one of the chapters, sorry is, um, based on my research, a little snapshot of it. But they can grab me on any of the blog posts that we do and I advertise any of my other work through a CARR wherever I am now, the Head of the Counter-Extremism research unit. So make sure you head over to CARRÕs website and you can get any of my posts on there. Um, and hopefully some more publications coming out around this research itself and the implications that it's got on education on, on Prevent, and going into future research on the way the far right are engaged in this as well. 

AD: Awesome. Thank you again, Natalie, for joining us. 

NJ: Thanks so much. 

AD: This has been another episode of Right Rising a podcast from the Center for the Analysis of the Radical Right. We'll see you next time.