A Study exploring Questions relating to Partnership between Police and Muslim Communities in the Prevention of Violent Extremism amongst Muslim Youth.

在英国，在7/7爆炸事件之后，以及一系列未遂的恐怖阴谋，预防暴力极端主义已经成为政策制定者的一个重要问题，穆斯林青年被认为是参与暴力极端主义的特别“危险”。在这种高度安全的背景下，警方被政府视为正在制定防止暴力极端主义战略的领导者，与地方当局合作，与其他机构合作，重要的是与穆斯林社区合作，因为“社区击败恐怖主义”已经成为公认的反恐格言。尽管反恐政策和实践一直由涉及监视、情报收集、使用线人和实施一些反恐法律的“强硬”战略所主导，但在7/7事件后，在政府的CONTEST战略的“追求”部分（HM government, 2006）下，CONTEST战略中的“预防”部分得到了更大的重视。因此，人们认为警务在制定和实施涉及社区参与的倡议方面发挥着重要作用。重要的是，2005年7月7日的爆炸事件模糊了警察和安全部门之间角色的区别，以社区为基础的反恐政策应运而生。警察在预防暴力极端主义中的作用提出了许多问题，这里提出的研究建立在先前由人权委员会资助的一项研究的基础上，该研究侧重于穆斯林社区与警察之间的伙伴关系（Spalek & El-Awa, 2008, AH/F008112/1）。例如，人权委员会进行的研究侧重于以反恐为目的涉及清真寺的警察-社区伙伴关系，其中对清真寺领导人进行了采访，说明他们如何与警察合作，努力防止年轻人成为暴力极端分子。然而，这个问题值得进一步研究，因为可能的情况是，年轻人一般不积极参与清真寺活动，也不认为现有的宗教领袖在行使权威。因此，重要的是建立和质疑这项研究的结果，以便更全面地检查现有的宗教领袖是否在穆斯林社区，特别是在伦敦和伯明翰的穆斯林青年中行使权威，以及清真寺是否以及如何与警察合作以防止暴力极端主义。先前由Spalek和El-Awa（2008）进行的AHRC研究也提出了更广泛的问题，如在伙伴关系工作中建立信任，警察和社区成员在协商冲突的价值观和共性方面的作用，以建立信任并关注与预防暴力有关的共同目标，以及对去激进化的案例特别有趣的情绪的影响，积极的和消极的，对参与这些问题的人。对于年轻的穆斯林来说，这些问题尤为重要：警察和年轻人如何才能克服传统上与他们的关系相关的紧张关系，并开始建立信任？谈判的依据是什么？警察和年轻人是如何处理情绪的——是否有办法以积极的方式控制愤怒和沮丧？关键的是，是否有证据表明，不仅在建立信任方面，而且在防止实际的或意识形态的暴力方面取得了成功？这项研究将侧重于警察和穆斯林社区之间的合作，重点关注16-25岁的年轻男女穆斯林，安全专家认为这是暴力极端主义的关键年龄段。

In the UK, in the aftermath of the 7/7 bombings, alongside a series of attempted terror plots, the prevention of violent extremism has become a significant issue for policy makers, with Muslim youth being identified as being particularly 'at risk' from engaging in violent extremism. Within this heightened security context, the police are being viewed by government as taking the lead in strategies that are being developed to prevent violent extremism, alongside local authorities, working in partnership with other agencies, and importantly, working with Muslim communities, since 'communities defeating terrorism' has become an accepted counter-terrorism maxim. Although counter-terrorism policies and practices have been dominated by 'hard-sided' strategies involving surveillance, intelligence gathering, the use of informants and the implementation of a number of anti-terror laws, under the Pursue strand of the government's CONTEST strategy (HM Government, 2006), post 7/7, the Prevent strand within the CONTEST strategy is being given much greater prominence, whereby policing is being viewed as playing a significant role in developing and implementing initiatives that involve community engagement. Importantly, the bombings on July 7th 2005 have helped to blur distinctions between the roles of the police and the security services, with community-based approaches to counter-terrorism policing emerging. The role of policing in the prevention of violent extremism raises many questions, and the study being proposed here builds on a previous AHRC-funded study that focussed upon partnership work between Muslim communities and the police (Spalek & El-Awa, 2008, AH/F008112/1). For example, the AHRC study that was conducted included a focus upon police-community partnerships involving mosques for the purposes of counter-terrorism, whereby mosque leaders were interviewed about how they have worked with police to try to prevent young people from becoming violent extremists. This issue merits further examination, however, as it may be the case that young people are not generally actively involved in mosques and do not see existing religious leaders as exercising authority. Therefore, it is important to build on and question the study's findings in order to examine more fully whether existing religious leaders exercise authority within Muslim communities and specifically with Muslim youth in London and Birmingham, and whether and how mosques are partnering police for the purposes of preventing violent extremism. The previous AHRC study undertaken by Spalek & El-Awa (2008) also raised wider questions on issues of trust-building in partnership work, the role of police officers and community members in negotiating conflicting values and commonalities on which to build trust and focus on shared goals relating to preventing violence, and, especially interesting to the case of de-radicalisation, the impact of emotions, positive and negative, on those engaged with these issues. In relation to young Muslims, these questions are particularly pertinent: how can police officers and young people overcome the tensions traditionally associated with their relationship and start to build trust ? On what grounds is this negotiated ? How are emotions handled by officers and young people - is there a way to harness anger and frustration in positive ways ? And critically, is there evidence of success, not only in trust building, but in actually preventing violence, actual or ideological ? This study will focus on partnership work between police and Muslim communities that focusses upon young male and female Muslims aged 16-25, this being the age range identified by security experts as key to violent extremism.