The official scheme aiming to keep people from being lured by terrorist propaganda may be made compulsory, after a police chief revealed that children as young as five are being shown beheading videos by their families.
Simon Cole, police lead for the deradicalisation scheme Prevent, said police and government have been discussing if some people need to be forced to take part.
Prevent is a controversial programme that aims to divert people from terrorism before they offend, and is currently voluntary. Public bodies such as schools have a duty to report those they suspect are at risk of being radicalised.
There were four lethal terrorist attacks in the UK between March and June this year, sparking a shakeup in counter-terrorism efforts.
Cole, chief constable of Leicestershire police, said there was a genuine debate about whether some people should be compelled to be deradicalised. He said: “It is a healthy and legitimate discussion. At what point do you allow and involve compulsion? If you want to divert someone, you are better doing it with their wholehearted consent. What do you do with returners [from Syria]? Should they automatically have to go on a programme?
“There might be some categories of people for whom there is some compulsion, and that needs linking into risk. It is a debate that is ongoing, and I don’t think there is an easy answer to it.”
Cole said the authorities needed to intervene in cases where there were concerns that people were at risk of being lured by terrorist propaganda. He said: “What do we do with a child who’s been sat down and shown beheading videos? I’m aware of cases where children who are five, six, seven years old, have been sat down and shown videos of people being beheaded.”
New figures released on Wednesday showed that the number of referrals to Prevent has doubled since the attacks on London and Manchester, reaching 200 in the last three months. “They have doubled from a relatively low base,” Cole said, adding that police believed that people in danger of radicalisation were not being reported to them.
Only a fraction of referrals come from the public – about 500 out of 6300 referrals in 2016-17.
Cole hit out at those criticising Prevent, such as former Met police superintendent Dal Babu, and those who said it was a cover for a spying programme on innocent people. He said: “This notion of Prevent as a toxic brand is simply incorrect, and is borne from misunderstanding. What I would like to hear more of is constructive dialogue about how we can all work together to stop innocent people being killed.
“On occasions it feels like people are sniping for the sake of it and that what they’re talking about doesn’t reflect the reality of local delivery of the voluntary safeguarding that I see going on all across the country.”
Police figures show that the numbers of referrals to Prevent concerning rightwing extremism doubled in the last year to about 15% of the total, while the bulk of referrals still concerned Islamist extremism. Other referrals were for domestic extremism, with motivations such as protecting animal rights.
Ch Supt David Smart, national coordinator for Prevent, said: “It is not necessarily about changing people’s beliefs. If you are angry about something, find a different way to express that without turning to violence. We are not saying you have to believe what I believe.”
Cole said Prevent helped by mentoring, providing a proper explanation of what people’s faiths allow, or helping them get a job or education, to reduce alienation.