Abstract
ABSTRACTSince 2015, the UK healthcare sector sector has (along with education and social care) been responsibilised for noticing signs of radicalisation and reporting patients to the Prevent programme. The Prevent Duty frames the integration of healthcare professionals into the UK’s counterterrorism effort as the banal extension of safeguarding. But safeguarding has previously been framed as the protection of children, and adults with care and support needs, from abuse. This article explores the legitimacy of situating Prevent within safeguarding through interviews with safeguarding experts in six National Health Service (NHS) Trusts and Clinical Commissioning Groups. It also describes the factors which NHS staff identified as indicators of radicalisation – data which was obtained from an online questionnaire completed by 329 health care professionals. The article argues that the “after, after 9/11” era is not radically distinct from earlier periods of counterterrorism but does contain novel features, such as the performance of anticipatory counterterrorism under the rubric of welfare and care.
Highlights
The question “is there an after, after 9/11?” forces us to address whether there has been any return from the exceptionalised, emergency frame which dominated international politics in the aftermath of 9/11
In the era of “after, after 9/11” in the UK, terrorism prevention has come to be framed as the extension of safeguarding
Upon examination, there is an imperfect fit between Prevent and safeguarding in the health care sector
Summary
You’re protecting the state from that person” (Consultant Psychiatrist B and GP 2, 2017) This underlying shift makes Prevent a controversial subject within the NHS, and demonstrates an imperfect fit with existing safeguarding structures which necessitates a constant negotiation of the Prevent Duty by health care professionals. Beheading videos are not mentioned in Prevent training, so the association of viewing such videos with radicalisation comes from popular media When asked if they would make a Prevent query about someone who watched beheading videos, 74% of respondents said “yes” (without any reference to the “care and support needs” generally needed for a concern to become relevant to safeguarding procedures); 21% “didn’t know”; and only 5% said they wouldn’t make a Prevent referral on this basis (Figure 6). Our study indicates that NHS health care professionals in the Midlands are inclined to draw such conclusions and to potentially make Prevent referrals on these grounds
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