AVERT Research Network Seminar

Professor Paul Thomas, University of Huddersfield (UK)

In early 2019, the British government announced an independent review of its counter-terrorism ‘Prevent strategy’ later this year. The review will inevitably re-focus public attention on this highly controversial policy. For its many critics, Prevent has remained a ‘toxic brand’ since its inception in 2006. Its critics portray Prevent as an inherently counter-productive and stigmatising strategy that essentially sees Britain’s Muslims as an undifferentiated ‘suspect community’. But how accurate a portrayal is this characterisation of Prevent today?  This seminar will analyse how much of the British public discourse around Prevent focuses on what it was, not what it increasingly is, to the detriment of engagement with hard questions about whether Britain’s current Prevent focus and strategies reflect what we know about international ‘state of the art’ C/PVE best practice.

Bio note

Paul Thomas, PhD, is Professor of Youth and Policy and Associate Dean Research for the School of Education and Professional Development at University of Huddersfield, UK. Paul’s research focuses mainly on state policies around young people and multiculturalism, racism, community cohesion, and the prevention of extremism, and particularly on how ground-level policy-makers and practitioners mediate and enact such state policy agendas.

Paul is the author of Responding to the Threat of Violent Extremism: Failing to Prevent (2012, Bloomsbury) as well as numerous research articles and reports. He has led or co-led a wide range of research projects on community cohesion and C/PVE strategy and practice, including a multi-country collaboration with AVERT’s Professor Michele Grossman on community reporting thresholds for violent extremism funded by CREST (UK), Public Safety Canada and National Institute of Justice (USA). Paul serves on the International Advisory Board for the AVERT Research Network.