‘New Terrorism’ and Crime Prevention Initiatives Involving Muslim Young People in the UK: Research and Policy Contexts

Abstract

This article draws upon a research study exploring engagement and partnership work between Muslim communities and the police within the context of ‘new terrorism’. First I set out the waysin which ‘new terrorism’ discourse has influenced security agendas and the impacts of securitisation policies on Muslim communities: here I argue that there is a danger that Islamic beliefs and practices can be stigmatised. I then consider the issue of researching Islam and Muslim communities within the context of ‘new terrorism’, and discuss the importance of building trust between the researcher and the researched, and the particular challenges associated with trust-building in a ‘new terrorism’ context. Lastly, I consider the relevance of grassroots-level, ‘street’-based, contexts involving Muslim young people for the prevention of terror crime. I suggest that local Al-Qaeda (AQ) recruiters and others potentially involved in terror crimes can exploit wider global events to generate powerful emotions among young people in the UK in order to promote violent causes; that some important preventative work with Muslim young people is being undertaken in the UK by individuals who understand the push-and-pull factors facing young people within local contexts in the UK; and that in order to counter AQ recruitment in contexts characterised by social and economic deprivation, at ‘street level’, it is important for those working with young people deemed at risk to possess street know-how and credibility. This is important given that there has been considerable debate regarding whether existing religious leaders exercise authority within Muslim communities and with Muslim young people in particular. The findings of the study I report here suggest that it is important for prevention work involving communities to involve those community members who have credibility with those young people deemed at risk.

Notes

There is a danger that issues of security that matter at the individual and community level – including experiences of violence, inter- and intra-community tensions, social and economic exclusion, racism, Islamophobia and so forth – are overlooked through the state-led focus upon the prevention of terrorism, both within the UK as well as overseas.

While the notion of ‘community’ is complex, multifarious and widely debated, it is important to highlight here that ‘community’ features significantly across wide-ranging social policy contexts, as both a target of intervention and as a way of responding to, and resolving, broad-ranging social problems such as crime and anti-social behaviour (Prior et al., 2006). Underpinned by the principle of ‘active citizenship’, whereby individuals are encouraged to volunteer their services, to participate in and contribute to civil society, communities are viewed as an important resource for tackling an array of social problems. However, the notion of community has been critiqued by critical researchers, as a catch-all phrase used by government as a way of simplifying, merging and combining complex social identities and groupings for the purposes of state-led, top-down, policy development and implementation (Spalek, 2008).

Further details on the role and make-up of the MSF are available at http://www.muslimsafetyforum.org

In the UK since 2000 counter-terrorism powers include: indefinite detention without charge of foreign nationals if suspected of involvement in terrorism; control orders imposing severe and intrusive prohibitions, including indefinite house arrest for up to 16 hours a day without charge; pre-charge detention in terrorism cases, currently allowing for 28 days detention without charge. Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 allowing stop-and-search without suspicion was overturned by the home secretary in July 2010 following a refusal of an appeal by the Home Office to the European Court of Human Rights against an earlier decision that had found section 44 to be illegal. On 13 July 2010 the home secretary announced that a rapid review of key counter-terrorism and security powers was under way. The review was to look at what counter-terrorism powers and measures could be rolled back in order to restore the balance of civil liberties and counter-terrorism powers. Control orders and stop-and-search powers are two of the key issues currently under review.

Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen have all featured as places where AQ operatives or affiliated groupings operate. Within security circles there is concern that British and other western citizens are being trained abroad to carry out terrorist atrocities particularly in Europe and the USA, and also that individuals linked to AQ are influencing western citizens to carry out lone attacks (Clarke and Soria, 2010). For example, a former US citizen who is now an extremist preacher in Yemen, Al-Awlaki, is viewed as having influenced a number of terror plots, in particular the failed Detroit bomber, Umar Farouq Abdulmutallab.

All interview quotations in this article are taken from verbatim transcripts, which are not publicly available.

It is worth noting that, as a result of the large amounts of research funding available on security issues regarding AQ-related terrorism, researchers with almost no knowledge of Muslim communities are being drawn into conducting research with Muslim minorities.