So not quite criminalising people then? No charges and convictions? Which I would take to be 'criminalising', but perhaps you have a different definition.By people like David Cameron in April 2002 stating that those who oppose Prevent are “enabling terrorism.” Or the fact that someone interviewed under the Prevent programme has their details held on a central database that can be shared with other agencies- regardless of whether any initial concerns were substantiated.
There have been several documented episodes of Muslim kids being referred for the most innocuous and spurious of reasons, including opposing British wars, supporting Palestine or wearing Muslim dress- not to mention the kid who misspelt ’terraced’ when writing in class that he lived in a ‘terrorist’ house. This is essentially the state policing people’s thoughts and beliefs, allowing repressive state intervention where no laws have been broken.
And those Muslim kids referred: who did the referring? Isn't it the assessment after the referral that counts? I.e. what's actually done?
But diverting people from terrorism sounds fairly sensible to me, imperfect as it may be. Unless of course we disagree that there is a terrorist element within some communities. Sadly we've sen how that manifest itself and we also know how easily some people have been radicalised online and by other means . Is it wrong to try and divert easily manipulated minds back to a non-violent narrative?