Cressida Dick article continued
In 2015-2016 PREVENT stopped more than 50 individuals travelling to Syria. I have seen the duty on those in schools and elsewhere to recognise signs and report concerns, controversial though it has been, to have resulted in effective safeguarding of young people and the vulnerable. It’s also worth noting that PREVENT works extensively against right-wing extremism – 10 per cent of referrals and nearly a third of interventions are with people who hold right-wing ideology.
Our communities:
All of our police work in countering terrorism is founded on our core principles and ethos. Of policing by consent. As Sir Robert Peel said, “the police are the public, and the public are the police”. All police work in the UK depends crucially on the support of people in our communities.
It is they who give us information, who allow us to set up observation points, who are witnesses, who give us our legitimacy, who pay for the service we provide. Without community support we are nothing and this applies in counter terrorism as much as anywhere else.
We have invested in local policing – in neighbourhood officers, those dedicated to particular wards, those working in schools – building confidence and solving problems.
I am convinced this work is a vital part of our counter terrorist effort. These neighbourhood officers are the staff most likely to be approached with information or for advice. These are the staff most likely to spot the signs of radicalisation. The relationship between local policing, schools and councils underpins the safeguarding work we collectively do to protect the vulnerable – including the very young, people with mental health problems or those who have lost their way and lack support in their lives.
“Communities defeat terrorism” and we need to be in our communities.
In recent times we have received ever more calls to the anti-terrorist hotline. We regularly receive information from family members, friends, schools and religious institutions about people they are worried about – whose behaviour is changing, who may be being radicalised. We have more people from all communities standing up and condemning terrorism.
But it is manifestly not enough. The threats we face are not unique to the UK – much of the world is facing similar challenges. Yet we must not deny the scale of this challenge. It comes at a time of international and political
© CI TY S ECURI TY MAGAZ INE – WINT ER 2017
uncertainty. In the police we have some huge retrospective investigations and reviews to service, changing demographics (a larger and younger population) and rising demands in other crime areas, such as sexual offences and violent crime and in the emergency response service.
In addition, as the Mayor has pointed out yesterday, in the Met we are facing financial pressures. Hence we in the police service welcome the Government’s announcement of reviews of counter terrorism, anti- extremism and integration strategies. The Casey report shone a worrying light on the degree of isolation and segregation that exists in some of our communities, and some of our Muslim communities specifically.
We will need a step change in government, agency and police efforts. A step change in communities in their efforts to protect and prevent. And even more help from the business community.
The role of business:
Just as the shift in threat means more is required of us, we need more from you – our partners. Business has considerable influence to help us tackle the threat that we collectively face. So I am asking that you continue to support us, to back us. Business and industry has been an increasingly strong partner as the threat has grown. I hope that will continue.
The police and agencies cannot prevent terrorism alone and we will be looking to the private sector to take more responsibility for protecting the public who use their services. The training of 23,000 UK travel industry workers in CT awareness is just one example of the commitment of British business to work with us.
www. c i t y s e cu r i t yma g a z i n e . com
We ask that you continue to prioritise and enhance protective security at your buildings to make them robust and “secure by design”, work with us to train your staff to know what to do to manage an incident, and ensure you have clear venue emergency plans. In particular, small businesses. We want to plan for incidents in more detail with you, and share information even more rapidly in the aftermath of an attack. But we also ask that you work with each other, sharing information to better understand the various CT threats.
Sharing is crucial – be it the reporting of cyber attacks or more general information – not just in the aftermath of an incident, but all the time. The joint money laundering intelligence taskforce was a great help in response to recent CT incidents. And business and the financial sector can and do help enormously in our work against criminal and terrorist financing.
I ask you all – please be an advocate for us and the work we do.
I am so completely confident that together we will rise to meet the challenge of the current threat.
From the Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick’s speech made early this year at Mansion House
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