Terrorism

The Counter Terrorism and Security Act places a legal duty on authorities to have "due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism".

Prevent

Prevent is about safeguarding people and communities from the threat of terrorism and is one of the four elements of CONTEST, the Government’s counter-terrorism strategy. It aims to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism by:

  • Responding to the ideological challenge we face from terrorism and aspects of extremism, and the threat we face from those who promote these views
  • Providing practical help to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism and ensure they are given appropriate advice and support
  • Working with a wide range of sectors (including education, criminal justice, faith, charities, health) where there are risks of radicalisation that we need to deal with

Prevent covers all forms of terrorism and extremism and some aspects of non-violent extremism.

The Home Office works with local authorities, a wide range of government departments, and community organisations to deliver the Prevent strategy. The police also play a significant role in Prevent, in much the same way as they do when taking a preventative approach to other crimes.

Prevent uses a range of measures to challenge extremism including:

  • Supporting people who are at risk of being drawn into terrorist or extremist activity through the Channel process
  • Working with and supporting community groups and social enterprise projects who provide services and support to vulnerable people
  • Working with faith groups and institutions to assist them in providing support and guidance to people who may be vulnerable
  • Supporting local schools, local industry and partner agencies through engagement, advice and training

Suffolk Channel Panel

Channel provides support to those who may be vulnerable to being drawn into terrorism. The aim is to provide early intervention to help and divert people away from the risk they may face. The process is a multi-agency approach with a wide range of agencies and local partners working together to provide support for individuals.

Channel works by partners jointly assessing the nature and the extent of the risk and where necessary, providing an appropriate support package tailored to the individual’s needs.

The three key stages of Channel are:

  • Identify individuals at risk of being drawn into terrorism
  • Assess the nature and extent of that risk
  • Develop the most appropriate support plan for the individuals concerned

Where necessary, referring cases to a multi agency panel for development of the most appropriate support package to divert and support the individual at risk.

Referrals come from those who have concerns about individuals who may be vulnerable to being drawn into terrorism. Referrers could include youth offending teams, social services, health, police, education and local communities.

The panel is designed to work in the same way as other multi agency structures that are used to safeguard individuals at risk – from drugs, knife and gun crime, gangs etc. The panel is chaired by the local authority and consists of statutory partners and the Channel coordinator.

Examples of support provided could include mentoring, diversionary activities such as sport, signposting to mainstream services such as education, employment or housing. Support is always tailored to specific needs of the individual following assessment by the multi-agency panel.

For a general awareness of Channel and what it means you may find the Channel General Awareness E-Learning module useful. This has been developed by the College of Policing and can give people an understanding of Prevent and Channel.

Action Counters Terrorism campaign

The Action Counters Terrorism (ACT) national counter terror campaign urges citizens to contact police about suspicious activity or online content and will run across radio and digital channels over six weeks (of paid for activity), backed by a national and regional media and public relations plan.

Since 2014 the threat from terrorism has been ‘severe’ meaning an attack is "highly likely". Against this backdrop the police, together with our security partners, have been working tirelessly to identify and disrupt the terrorist threat, while at the same time raising public awareness of the risks and how we are responding. This is why a new campaign has been developed to urge the public to report suspicious activity to help prevent terrorism. In the past, lives have been saved and terrorists have been thwarted thanks to the public coming forward with information.

The campaign will be the first under a new branding platform called ACT and proactively supports the National Counter Terrorism Policing Strategy 2016-2021 which aims to keep people safe from terrorism. In addition this activity is helping to deliver the Policing element of the Government's CONTEST strategy and is aligned with the 4 P's: Prevent, Pursue, Protect and Prepare.