A collection of news articles, reports, and publications available in the public domain, which are relevant to UK policing.
Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Service (HMICFRS) have published a report detailing the findings of an inspection examining the role of the police in the Prevent programme, a strand of the Governments CONTEST strategy, including the capability to respond terrorist threats.
The report contains seven recommendations none of which are directed at forces, however, they may have an impact on forces at a later date.
The report can be read in full here.
Source: HMICFRS
The Ministry of Justice has announced an independent review of the effectiveness of the statutory Multi-agency public protection arrangements (MAPPA). The terms of reference state that the review will make recommendations to strengthen the operation of the entire MAPPA framework for managing TACT and TACT-related offenders.
The review will apply to England and Wales and will be submitted to the Home Secretary and the Justice Secretary.
Source: Gov.uk
Psychologist Christopher Dean from the Healthy Identity Intervention (HII) scheme reported that it can never be certain that terror offenders have been ‘cured’. The aim of the HII is to make individuals less willing to commit offences on behalf of extremist groups or ideology. The article refers to Usman Khan who was shot by the police following the stabbing of two individuals on 29 November 2019 at London Bridge. Khan participated in the rehabilitation programme and appeared to be making progress before his release from prison. At the time of writing, HII scheme cannot be tested for its effectiveness, but it has been assessed to be based on the best-available evidence about challenging extremist mindsets.
Source: BBC
Following its investigation into how the police use live facial recognition (LFR) technology in public places, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) called for government to introduce a statutory and binding code of practice on the deployment of LFR. The ICO stated that this is necessary in order to give the police and the public enough knowledge as to when and how the police can use LFR systems in public spaces. The ICO has also recommended that the police and other government bodies and organisations do more work to eliminate bias in the algorithms particularly those associated with ethnicity.
Meanwhile the ICO has released the first Commissioner’s Opinion which informs on data protection rules which police forces need to follow before and during deployment of LFR. The Opinion should be followed when LFR is used.
Source: ico.org.uk
The ‘OK’ hand sign has been added to a list of hate symbols after its increased usage by extremist groups. The symbol is becoming commonly used by hate groups as a symbol of white supremacy.
The Anti-Defamation League has stated that whilst the majority of individuals who use the symbol do so to show approval, the public and law enforcement must be made aware of the increased usage by extremist groups.
Source: BBC News
Whilst speaking at the UN General Assembly in New York, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced funding to support research to develop industry-wide technology that will enable improved identification of violent videos online.
It is hoped that new technology will be able to identify online videos that currently avoid existing detection methods, thus limiting the length of time such videos are online. In order to do this, an algorithm will be created that can be used by any internet company to detect violent and harmful videos such as terrorist footage and prevent them from being shared online.
Source: GOV.UK
An article in the Metro featuring comments from Nick Lowles, founder of the charity Hope not Hate, has stated that in order to stop the growing threat of far-right extremism, politicians must stop using inflammatory language when talking about immigrants, Muslims and other minorities.
The comments come at the same time as a speech by Neil Basu who named far-right extremism the fastest growing terrorist threat. Mr Lowles noted that when politicians talk negatively, it normalises the rhetoric of the far-right.
In addition to discussing the language used by politicians, Mr Lowles also discussed the need to tackle homelessness and deprivation. He said that feelings of feelings of hopelessness and despair stemming from homelessness and deprivation often lead to extremism, as far-right groups often target feelings of alienation and despair.
Source: The Metro
The UK head of counter-terrorism Neil Basu, has stated that the fastest growing terror threat in the UK comes from the far-right. Whilst he noted that the greatest threat came from jihadists, Mr Basu stated that the far-right terrorist caseload had increased by 4% in the last two years, whereas the Islamist threat had remained largely similar, though at a much higher level.
Mr Basu discussed the police approach to right-wing threats saying that some of the criticism around the police not always looking at white supremacist right-wing violence as terrorism in the past was justified. However, he also praised the more recent work between MI5 and counter-terrorism police to tackle right-wing extremism.
Source: BBC News
A paper written by Dr Chris Allen focusing on the far-right group National Action has stated that the key to understanding National Action was an its ideology and its commitment to enacting it.
The paper discusses how the early demonstrations undertaken by the group appeared similar to those conducted by the EDL and Britain First. Moreover, the paper notes how National Action tried to appeal to a younger audience.
The paper notes the difficulty of studying groups such as National Action due to the members’ distrust of academics, deeming them to be hostile.
The paper can be read in full here.
Source: GOV.UK
In recent weeks a number of papers relating to extremism have been published. This post will summarise some of them.
Critiquing approaches to countering extremism and terrorism via Prevent – H Fenwick
This paper notes that the reliance on the Prevent Strategy has been criticised for creating stigmatisation of Muslims, damage to social cohesion and as representing a striking recent increase in securitisation in the UK. However, it also notes that Prevent’s role in encouraging critical thinking and pluralism has also received some support.
Exploring radicalisation and Extremism online – an experimental study – M Littler
The paper uses the data collected from a 1,700 respondent poll conducted by You-Gov on the evening of Tuesday 16th April 2019. The research sought to explore the relationship between exposure to online extremist content, and social and political attitudes including support for violence. The results did not match the hypothesis. No relationship between the phenomena was found. Suggestions for this include ineffective stimulus material, or the conditions of the research. Sources for the stimulus material included information from the EDL. Further analysis found little evidence for the availability for extremist content to impact or or shift social and political attitudes.
Extremism online – analysis of extremist material on social media – I Awan, H Sutch & P Carter
This paper examines the differences between general online discussion of extremism and discussion inspired by offline events through the analysis of tweets and YouTube comments. The study focused on two events: the Shamima Begum case and the New Zealand Christchurch terrorist attacks. The paper states that cyber-meditated crime such as online extremism is not comparable to conditions of offline crime. Extremists may take advantage of how the internet provides the potential for a greater audience (reach/impact) with the ability to remain anonymous. This can lead to deindividuation.
Embedding human rights in countering extremism: reflections from the field and proposals for change – K E Brown, F Londras, J White
This paper states that generally speaking seven domains of Counter Extremism (CE) activity can be identified:
The majority of the work in CE is carried out at the local and community level and is concerned with addressing extremist narratives and ideology. The challenges and risks with the existing approaches are political and philosophical, institutional and functional. The paper recommends re-framing CE towards human rights as both a process and an “end-state”. The paper then proposes a set of guidelines to achieve this, and the establishment of an independent evaluative review body.
This paper suggests that current policy has generated and continues to generate criticism from educators and faith groups. The paper highlights the issue that individual liberty barely features in the lists of values promoted in schools. Moreover, the paper highlights that the notion of ‘Britishness’ may be considered particularly divisive and problematic. It notes that schools tend towards other values frameworks that favour the promotion of values more universal and inclusive in nature.
Police Horizon Scanning 