The treatment of autistic people who are referred to the government’s deradicalisation scheme could be in breach of equality laws, a human rights charity has claimed. The home secretary has been warned that Prevent and Channel, the multi-agency follow-on programme, which seek to identify people at risk of extremism, are overreporting neurodivergent people.
In a pre-action letter to the Home Office, Rights & Security International (RSI) said it was “deeply concerned about a potential ongoing failure to collect and analyse data on the protected characteristics of those referred to Prevent and that this constitutes an ongoing failure to comply with their public sector equality duty”.But maybe the prevalence of them on the list simply means that the public perception of autistic people as harmless wierdoes obsessed with dinosaurs or rail timetables - thanks to film & tv - is wrong?
RSI has argued that the failure to collect adequate data to support equality monitoring constitutes a breach of the home secretary and police’s public sector equality duty. The duty is the requirement to have “due regard” to the equality objectives in section 149 of the Equality Act, which include the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between people who share protected characteristics and those who do not.
Pretty difficult to do when they are doing this sort of thing:
Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, has voiced his concerns that a “staggeringly high” number of autistic people are referred to Prevent. He has cited terrorism cases in which the defendants were autistic, including 17-year-old Lloyd Gunton, who declared himself an Islamic State soldier and was sentenced to life in prison for preparing a vehicle and knife attack in Cardiff in 2018.
Should someone who does this not be referred to Prevent then? Just because they have, or may later get, a diagnosis?
A Home Office spokesperson said the government was reviewing the Prevent programme in light of concerns over neurodivergence. “We understand that those referred to Prevent often present with a range of vulnerabilities, and we take our safeguarding duties very seriously.
I think you are a bit confused about who exactly are the truly vulnerable here…
