West Yorkshire Police chief: Local heartbeat of fight against terror

The local officer patrolling his or her beat in a close community is good policing, but to some may seem a world away from the global spectre of international terrorism.
Yet it is at the heart of our communities where we begin the task of preventing people – predominantly the young, vulnerable and impressionable – from being drawn into a world of extremism.
By we I mean not just the police, though they have a pivotal role, but all organisations and individuals with a stake in their communities.

Here in West Yorkshire, we have seen the evidence. People born and educated in our towns, people who lived as our neighbours, have gone on to be at first attracted to and then directly involved in violent extremism.
The challenge for us all, but specifically the police and partner agencies, is whether there was anything we might have done to intervene with those involved in the July 7 bombings before that fateful day.

Might there have been clues about their attraction to violent extremism if we had been looking for it and if the community was prepared to raise it with someone?
And how do we pick up on those signs now, for if we are to have any success we need to get upstream of the terrorism threat.

The focus of police activity in this area in the last couple of years has been around building structures to protect national security and to pursue those who directly threaten it. In the areas of greatest threat we have established counter-terrorism hubs.

This capability has enabled the Police Service to interdict in many incidents of attack planning. Their work is remarkable and relentless and I am proud of the work they undertake.
However the threat remains and will remain for the foreseeable future.

That is where my role in leading the ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers) PREVENT strategy is pivotal.
We have to better understand how people are drawn into this world, how in the words of the friends and relatives of one July 7 bomber, they become "changed individuals".
What makes them feel excluded and allows them to be drawn into an entirely different world?
The foundation of the ACPO PREVENT strategy, and the necessary keystone, is positive and embedded neighbourhood policing. We, the police, have to get upstream in preventing violent extremism.
Trust

It's a challenging task. Some research last year revealed that the Police Service was very low on a list of agencies Muslims would turn to if they had concerns about violent extremism within their community. The research shows how far the service has to go in establishing relationships and trust and also reveals why this strategy cannot be for the police alone.

Local policing touches the local community in one way, but local authority partners engage with the same community in different and dynamic ways.
Young people go to school and are in the hands of teachers for eight hours a day.

Universities and colleges will be broadening the minds of people in a relevant age group and might spot the difference between the radical, typical in the university culture, from the extremist who gives concern to faculty members.

The overlap between local policing and local partnerships cannot be emphasised enough. We need partnerships with open communication about violent extremism.

PREVENT needs a partnership response in order to succeed.

The building of relationships and trust is critical for the relationship between police and local communities. We need to strengthen the capacity of the Neighbourhood Policing Team to ensure a conduit for information sharing with other partners.

There must also be a means by which interventions can be raised and actioned. The Channel Scheme is a pilot scheme to provide such a conduit. Home Office funds have been provided in four police force areas to appoint officers to create the conduits, with partners, to identify vulnerable individuals and sites and to negotiate multi-agency interventions.

Richness

The scheme is currently operating in four pilot sites, although only two of these have been subject to evaluation. There is an intention to roll out the scheme to other sites in the next few months.

It funds an officer to take a particular responsibility for building local coalitions and providing a ‘channel’ for information and referrals and also to build a repertoire of multi- agency interventions with the partners involved.

West Yorkshire has always rightly celebrated the richness brought about by its multi-cultural make up. But within those diverse communities, there are people at risk from being exploited by those who have evil intent. If we are to prevent such people from becoming violent extremists, then we have to work together as good “neighbours” to intervene at the earliest stage. The police are not the appropriate agency to challenge warped ideology, but there are many in the community who can. All have a role to play in keeping the whole community safe and secure.