Thursday 30-11-2017 - 10:05

 

 

 

Prevent is a very controversial topic. I wanted to find out more about it so I met with Alan Cain, the person who’s in charge of Prevent here at Manchester Met, and asked him a few questions that I’m sure many of our students would like to know the answers to. Read on for the full interview, and if you have any other questions feel free to get in touch with Alan or contact the Advice Centre.

 

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Really briefly, what is Prevent?

Okay, so Prevent is part of Contest, which is the government’s counter-terrorism strategy. Specifically, it’s the strand of Contest that is about preventing the radicalisation of vulnerable individuals.

 

One of the criticisms of Prevent is that it infringes on freedom of speech. How is the University making sure that this doesn’t happen?

That’s an interesting area in regards to Prevent. You have a duty called the Prevent duty, which is to prevent students from being drawn into extremism, and by the same token, you also have the Education (No.2) Act 1986, which puts a legal duty on universities to uphold freedom of speech. So, you have this tension between the two. We could be faced with a situation where we have to ban a speaker because what they are likely to say might contribute to members of the audience being drawn into extremism.  But I’m pleased to say that in the three years that I’ve been at Manchester Metropolitan University, we’ve never once had to take this action. Typically what we’ll do if there is a controversial speaker, is we’ll put on another speaker with differing viewpoints so that students see both sides of the argument. And in that way, they get the balanced view and they can come to their own formed opinions.

 

Most students won’t be aware of the processes around Prevent. If a student has concerns about something that they see on campus, how would they report it?

So, either to make a referral, or just if you want to ask any questions about Prevent, you’re probably best off either contacting Rita Lewin, who is the Director of Student Support Services (R.Lewin@mmu.ac.uk), Alex Thorley, who is the Academic Registrar (A.Thorley@mmu.ac.uk), or myself (A.Cain@mmu.ac.uk), and any of us would be more than happy to either take a referral or to talk to you further about Prevent.

 

And what actually happens after a report has been made?

Firstly, we don't ever publish the names and details of the person who has put that report in. We discuss the report and make a judgment call which goes down one of three ways – way number one is no further action and typically that is where it’s a malicious complaint that doesn’t need to go any further. The second possibility is that it’s actually something other than radicalisation. For example, a report could come in where another student has picked up that somebody’s becoming withdrawn and isolated and no longer wants to associate with their peers, all things that on the face of it could be signs of someone vulnerable to extremism, but turn out to be signs of emerging mental health difficulties. Obviously, at that point, it goes to our Counselling, Health and Wellbeing team and we put the relevant support in place.

Thirdly, if it is something that we think may be terrorist related, we’ll have a conversation with partner agencies, so typically Greater Manchester Police. We outline the case without giving the student’s name, so that enables the Police to say what their feelings are based on what we’ve described without the person’s name being put over. Once we’ve got that information we decide whether disclosure of the student’s name is appropriate and then the appropriate course of action is taken.

 

Prevent has been strongly criticised for its apparent focus on Islamic extremism and its tolerance of right-wing extremism. Considering our large community of Muslim students at Manchester Met, how is the University ensuring that Muslim students are not unfairly discriminated against?

The first thing to say is that Prevent is concerned with all forms of radicalisation and extremism, including Islamic extremism and far right extremism, and our aim is to implement the duty in a balanced and measured way, through engagement with our students and staff. We always have and always will take a balanced approach. The Prevent training that is given emphasises all aspects, and we have a senior member of the Students’ Union on the Prevent steering group, which is the overarching group the University has overseeing its Prevent policies. I can’t emphasise enough that it’s about safeguarding – in a typical year, we only discuss about three or four cases with external agencies so the numbers are very small.

 

Some postgraduate research students might find that their work is affected by Prevent duty. What does this actually mean for them and where can they get more information?

Okay, so this one is particularly dear to my heart. As well as being the Head of Security here, I’m actually studying part time via evening classes for an MA in Terrorism and Security. So, I’m very keen to make sure that students stay on the right side of the law in terms of this one. In terms of the guidance, we have a Research Ethics and Governance Manager, Ramona Statache (R.Statache@mmu.ac.uk), and if you contact her in the first instance, she’ll basically advise you as to the research that can and cannot be carried out.

Really, as a university, we want to have active research, but we don’t want students to inadvertently stray to the wrong side of the law, by downloading and disseminating terrorist material for example, so we need to make sure that there’s a strong governance process there to support their research decisions. We’ve got people in our Arts and Humanities department at the moment doing research on the far right, so we need to make sure in terms of that research that it’s absolutely nailed on what they can and can’t do and where the line in the sand is that they can’t cross legally.

 

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If you have any questions or concerns about Prevent, you can contact Rita Lewin, Alan Cain or Alex Thorley, or get in touch with our Advice Centre.