Prevent (CONTEST)
The Prevent strategy is most renowned out of the four spheres, which focuses on grass root levels to stop individuals becoming involved with extremism. It has three sections of concern: 1. Responding to ideological challenges in society that the UK faces from terrorism and extremism, and the individuals who promote these views. 2. Providing practical help to prevent individuals from being drawn into terrorism and ensure they are supported. 3. Collaborating with a range of sectors including education, criminal justice system, religious communities, charities, online platforms and the health sector to identifying the risks of radicalisation and extremism that need to be tackled. The risks tackled in Prevent are reflected and prioritised by the dynamic/continuously changing set of risks presented in the UK in present day, which may involve threats from all forms of terrorism and non-violent extremism. For instance, following the death of soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich, the Prime Minister is leading a task force on tackling extremism and radicalisation. The strategy uses a range of measures to challenge radicalisation and extremism within the UK: • Where necessary preventing apologists for terrorism and extremism from travelling to the UK. • Cooperating with law enforcement agencies to spread awareness of extremism and the statutory powers available to authority members to challenge extremist speakers. • Funding a specialist police unit that tackles online propaganda that breaches terrorist legislation. • Supporting community based campaigns and activities that strive to tackle extremism and radicalisation, and work closely with those most at risk of becoming involved with these groups, • Working with individuals most at risk of being exposed to radicalised organisations through the Channel process. Channel is a multi-agency approach which gives individuals access to services such as health and education, specialist mentoring and diversionary activities. The programme's approach to protecting vulnerable people includes: 1. Identifying individuals at risk 2. Assessing the nature and extent of the risk 3. Developing a the most appropriate support plan for the individuals concerned. • Internationally working overseas with countries that have an active support of terrorism and promotion of extremism. The focus is concentrated on Pakistan, the Middle East and East Africa where radicalising activity can have a direct impact on communities in the UK.
Protect (CONTEST)
Protect aims to strengthen the UK's safeguarding measures against terrorist attacks on a national level both from internal and external threats to reduce overall vulnerability. Within this strategy the Home Office has four end-products that will be achieved: 1. A strengthened UK border security 2. A reduction in the vulnerability of the transport network 3. An increase in the resilience of the UK's infrastructure 4. An improvement in the protective security for crowded places and events. These locations are easily accessible, regularly available and which offer an effective impact remains an attractive target for attacks. LEA's give advice to organisations in the public and private sectors to reduce their vulnerability to these types of attacks. Of these aims and end-products the main priority of Protect is to ensure and improve the safeguarding of the UK's national infrastructure. To focus on this goal the government uses a multi-agency approach working with intelligence agencies, regulators and trade bodies to allow greater cooperation to encourage owners and operators of CNI to improve protective security. For the most effective safeguarding methods, this includes putting in place or building into a design, measures and response procedures so that threats may be deterred, detected, or the consequences of an attack minimised. These measures aim to either prevent a direct assault on a site or reduce the potential damage and injuries that could occur should an incident take place.
Prepare (CONTEST)
Prepare aims to mitigate the impact of a terrorist incident where it cannot or was not stopped and prevented. The Home Office works with the intelligence agencies and emergency services in these incidents to stop the terrorist attack, and recover from the aftermath. With these aspirations in mind, the objectives of Prepare are: • To continue to build generic capabilities to respond to and recover from a wide range of terrorist and other civil emergencies. • To improve preparedness for the highest impact risks in the national risk assessment. Within the police, the Home Office are achieving this by enhancing the firearms capabilities of police armed units and emergency services more widely to tackle the serious attacks. • To improve the ability of the emergency services to work together during a terrorist attack. To relieve the pressure of the emergency services in these cases, the Home Office aims to support and enhance the cooperation and effectiveness of the services at the scene of a major incident. • To enhance communications and information sharing between emergency services for terrorist attacks. The Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Programme was developed in 2012 by the police, fire and ambulance services to improve the immediate emergency responses to major and complex incidents. The 2 year programme focuses on improving the immediate emergency response to any major or complex incident. The projects include work to ensure that the services: • Have a detailed understanding of each other's’ roles and responsibilities. • Have clear guidance on how to work together where appropriate. • Share information quickly and effectively. • Can make rapid decisions supported by a joint assessment of risk.
Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (CREST)
CREST is a national research centre funded by the Economic and Social Research Council that focuses on understanding, countering and mitigating security threats. This research covers the psychological and social drivers of the threat, the skills and technologies that enable its effective investigation, and the protective security measures that aid the countering of the threat prematurely. The outcomes of CREST's research are to: • Address stakeholder questions by reviewing current policies and providing 'best practice' recommendations. • Undertake contemporary research that addresses gaps in existing literature, or the improvement of current knowledge. • Conduct synthetic reviews, workshops, toolkit development, and research projects that consider scientific standards, stakeholder relevance and value for money. • Produce a range of methods to communicate the new knowledge to the security and intelligence agencies, wider government academics and policy makers, researchers, industry partners, local communities and the wider public. • Run engagement events that encourage the communication between academia, stakeholders and the wider public at both a strategic and grass-roots level to over time develop an interdisciplinary community. • Produce the future generations of researchers and educators, deliver formal professional development for stakeholders and engage the SME and industry to support innovation. To conduct the research CREST has an inter-disciplinary approach which comprises of three universities: Lancaster University, University of Bath and the University of Portsmouth, and 18 associate universities that will maximise the breadth of university knowledge and understanding. The Centres structure is designed to enhance the understanding and skills of practitioners whilst improving the capacity of researcher skills in delivering effective and impactful research. To achieve this the Centre covers five agendas: 1. Knowledge synthesis: Activities that build upon existing research and expertise through delivering an evidence database that develops understandings of current policies and practice, and identifies gaps in research. 2. Original research: Activities that deliver high-quality research and research implementation that advances current knowledge and practice in diverse areas of social science and security. 3. Communication: Activities that use traditional and innovative communication methods to ensure the outputs of the research have maximum impact on stakeholders and wider public understandings. 4. Network: Activities that promote the networking of new ideas and knowledge, encourages new interactions, builds interdisciplinary networks, and facilitate the long-term collaborations between security agencies, the government and research communities.
Royal United Services Institute (RUSI)
RUSI is an independent think tank that collaborates with cutting edge defence and security research founded by the Duke of Wellington. As a research led institution RUSI works across the breadth of security and defence specialisms: • Defence, industries and society: Facilitates an evidence-based understanding of industries in the Western defence sector and wider society. • International security studies: Monitors security and foreign policy developments in countries and regions on an international scale. • Military sciences: Examines the utility of military features, including strategic concepts and technical platforms. • National security studies: Explores innovative approaches to the safeguarding of citizens, society, the state and infrastructure. • Proliferation and nuclear policy: Provides a detailed analysis and research into contemporary nuclear weapons concerns. • Centre for financial crime and security studies: Addresses the challenges and effects of financial crime and threat finance to the UK and international security, and the critical role finance can play as an indicator of globally-recognised threats. The institute currently has a number of ongoing projects that focus on the six topic areas: • The global research network on terrorism and technology: Examines the terrorist exploitation of technology and hosted content platforms. As a consortium of academic institutes and think tanks, they conduct research exploring the recruiting tactics terrorists use online, the ethics surrounding monitoring the said content, potential public-private partnerships that can address the issue, and the technological resources that will aid preventing the dissemination of content. • Lone-actor terrorism: Aims to improve the understandings and responses to the increasing phenomenon of lone actors through analysis of comprehensive data on cases from across Europe. Lone actor terrorists are presenting larger challenges for law enforcement in their detection and disruption through acting without direct demand from wider networks. The project aims to construct a database of 120 perpetrators across Europe to analyse and improve understandings of lone terror attacks and their behavioural patterns leading up to the attack. By doing so this will assist European governments and frontline workers to counter the threats. • Financial crime 2.0: Determines how the current anti-money laundering regime should be updated to produce a more effective infrastructure to reflect the modern technological landscape. The programme aims to cover two questions: 1. How can core elements of the AML regime be improved to create an enabling environment for the use of technology? 2. How should the AML framework be adapted in order to address today's financial crime landscape?
Dialogue About Radicalisation and Equality (DARE)
- , , , , , , , , , , , ,
- Link
The multi-agency project comprises of 17 partners in 13 countries internationally funded under the EU Horizon Framework Programme for 4 years. The project explores young people's encounters with agents of radicalisation, how they receive and respond to those calls, and how they make choices about the paths they take. In doing so the project aims to broaden current understandings of radicalisation, to demonstrate that it is not located in any one religion or community and to outline the effects of radicalisation on society. The demographic for the research is people aged 12-30, due to having the highest risk of being key targets of recruiters. The objectives for DARE are as follows: • Broaden understandings of radicalisation trends in historical, spatial and political contexts. • Identify new trends in receptivity to radicalisation through youth and gender. • Investigate the interaction of structure and agency in individual trajectories. • Enhance understandings of the role of inequality and perceived injustice in radicalisation. • Understand the significance of religion, ideologies and extra-ideological and how they are intertwined into radicalisation frameworks. • Develop a new evaluation and intervention toolkit to countering radicalisation and its impact through collaboration between policy makers and stakeholders.
Bayerische Informationsstelle gegen Extremismus (BIGE)
The Bavarian Information Center against Extremism (BIGE) is an important component of the beginning of 2009 of the Bavarian State Government. The fields of activity of BIGE include both right and left extremism. The employees are recruited from the areas of the protection of the Constitution and the police. The BIGE: - is the contact person for citizens, municipalities and schools, - operates - together with the Bavarian State Ministry of Education and Culture, Science and Art - the Internet portals www.bayern-gegen-rechtsextremismus.bayern.de as well as www.bayern-gegen-linksextremismus.bayern.de, - advises affected municipalities in Bavaria, - is significantly involved in the advisory network for democracy and tolerance in Bavaria's schools, - networks the various institutions and participates in democratic alliances, - acts as a mediator to police and constitution protection.
Gemeinsames Terrorabwehrzentrum (GTAZ)
The Joint Counter-Terrorism Center (GTAZ) set up in Berlin at the end of 2004 is not an independent authority but a cooperation and communication platform of 40 national authorities in the field of internal security. Due to the organizational structure, there is no "GTAZ leader", but representatives of the following institutions cooperate "on equal terms": Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution; Bundeskriminalamt; Federal Intelligence Service; Federal Attorney General; Federal police; Customs; Federal Office for Migration and Refugees; Federal Office for the Military Shielding Service; State offices for constitution protection; State Criminal Police Offices
Counter Terrorism Group (CTG)
The Counter-Terrorism Group (CTG) was launched in autumn 2001 following a decision of the Council of EU Justice and Home Affairs Ministers of 20 September 2001. The CTG is an informal intelligence service and therefore not part of the security architecture of the European Union. Among the 30 CTG members are the domestic intelligence services (also German Federal Intelligence Service) and the state police forces of the EU member states, which are equipped with intelligence powers, as well as the services of Norway and Switzerland. The presidency is chaired biannually by the service whose country holds the EU Presidency.
Kompetenzzentrum für Deradikalisierung
The task of the competence centre for deradicalization is, in particular, to coordinate deradicalizing approaches in order to enable risks to self and other people by religiously motivated radicalized persons as well as to carry out evaluations and assessments of radicalization processes. The competence centre for deradicalization is • Contact person and consultant for all public bodies in Bavaria, including the provisions of the Bavarian and nationwide exchange of information with partners of the deradicalisation network as well as • responsible for the preparation of analyzes and assessments related to radicalization notices • Responsible for the coordination of issues, the starting points for deradicalisation measures of Salafism in Bavaria • Contact for violence prevention networks in security-related questions and • Responsible for cooperation and dialogue with the Muslim communities.
Beratungsnetzwerk Prävention und Deradikalisierung
In Hamburg, state and civil society institutions have come together to jointly counter religiously based extremism and anti-Muslim sentiment and to develop and implement preventive measures. The members of the network are constantly exchanging views on all aspects of religiously motivated radicalization and Muslim hostility. They support the development of concepts and measures for prevention and intervention and work together, e.g. on the sensitization and qualification of educational staff and on improving cooperation in casework.
KOMPASS - Toleranz statt Extremismus
The project "COMPASS Tolerance instead of Extremism" is affiliated to the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF). This advisory center on radicalization at the BAMF does valuable work as the first point of contact. Those seeking help, such as parents, family members, friends or those who wish to leave, as well as teachers and staff from the refugee area will be forwarded to experts from NGOs, who will carry out their concrete work of deradicalization and exit, for further consultation.