The ‘action/inaction conundrum’: The paradox of ‘effective’ early interventions to prevent extremism - Te Puna Haumaru Seminar Series

Much existing research has focused on de-radicalisation programmes or policy frameworks such as the UK’s Prevent Strategy, but early intervention prevention practices are less well understood.

In this seminar, key findings from a qualitative study that explored this issue in depth will be presented. With a focus on Wales, the broad aims of the research were to understand the aspirations, organisation and delivery of this prevention work, as well as the ways the ‘problem’ of extremism was being understood.

The study was based on ethnographic fieldwork, combining observations of five different interventions as they were being delivered (over 70 hours), with interviews of policymakers and practitioners involved (N=28). Key findings include that definitions of extremism are expanding and there has been a push to do ‘more’ to prevent future harm, not only from extremism, but also hate crime, racism, violence, drugs, and exploitation.

However, practitioners expressed many concerns about the potentially stigmatising impacts of early interventions for young people. In turn, this creates an ‘action/inaction conundrum’ in decisions of intervention, where there is a kind of ‘double risk’ at play: the risk of stigmatisation through action (intervention), as well as the risk of future extremism if they take no action at all.

This ‘conundrum’ and the implications for practice will be the main focus of the seminar.

Speaker: Dr Bethan Davies, Research Associate at the Security, Crime & Intelligence Innovation Institute at Cardiff University.