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A slightly historic story from April but worth highlighting the good work involved.
PREVENT Engagement Officers hold community based exercise.
The aim of Prevent is to stop people, regardless of their faith or background, from becoming terrorists or supporting violent extremists.
This exercise provided a good opportunity to interact with the community
London’s Prevent Engagement officers teamed up to hold two of the largest community-based, counter terrorism exercises ever conducted by the MPS.
The South London Prevent Engagement Officers got together to deliver the ‘ACT (All Communities Together) NOW’ exercise to over 200 pupils at the Bishop Thomas Grant school in Streatham, while their West London colleagues delivered the session to a similar number of students at the Phoenix school in Shepherds Bush.
Each exercise saw the students taking on the role as police officers having to deal with a terrorist incident. The pupils were faced with snippets of information and intelligence about an emerging terrorist conspiracy, and had to decide on what actions to take: who should they arrest? Should they use under cover officers? Should they search the house? What should they tell the public?
As well as giving the young people the chance to play cops the ACT NOW also gave the students and officers a chance to talk about violent extremism and terrorism: why it may happen, who’s to blame; as well as giving all sides more of an insight into what the police have to do, and how young people feel about these important issues.
After having delivered a number of ‘ACT NOW’s across the area, the South London Prevent Engagement officers (PEOs) decided to work together to deliver the exercise to a larger group to spread the message as far and wide as possible. This approach was also taken by West London PEOs, who pooled their resources to increase coverage and efficiency by reaching an entire year group.
The exercises, which took part during school hours, were delivered by the PEOs direct to groups of 13 and 14 year olds, who, after some initial reservations became fully engaged with the officers. First they had to decide on how to handle small pieces of intelligence, which were being fed in, while later on, as the conspiracy becomes more apparent they had to co-ordinate operations to identify, trace and arrest suspects; search properties; and finally, face the media to explain their actions.
The South London event was organised by Lambeth PEO Rick Warrington, who worked with his counterparts from Wandsworth, Croydon, Merton, Twickenham & Richmond as well as one of Lambeth’s safer schools officers Paul Dowsett and Prevent south cluster sergeant Gavin Ellis. The sessions at Shepherds Bush were delivered by six PEOs covering the West London Prevent boroughs.
PC Warrington was delighted with the input from the role players. He said: “The kids really got immersed into their role as police officers in having to make critical decisions in dealing with a fast moving, terrorist investigation; while having to face the same dilemmas that our colleagues face in similar, but real life situations.
PC Lee Carroll, PEO for Hammersmith & Fulham was also impressed with the involvement of the students, and added: “The exercises really opened up the debate about violent extremism. It gave us all - police and young people - the chance to discuss these important issues, to address stereotypes, and to talk about policing and the law in a frank and informal way.”
The Met's Mark Goldby, Supt for Prevent praised the officers for pulling together to deliver the exercises to so many in one go. He said: “This is a great example of PEOs working together with their borough colleagues and partners to deliver important messages to young people in an engaging and effective way.”
“We hope that the exercise gave them a brief insight into the work of the police as well as giving them the opportunity to discuss the issues around terrorism and violent extremism.
“Our ACT NOW exercises are part of our strategy of being open about how we are working with the public to protect communities from the threat of terrorism and violent extremism.”
One of the pupils at Bishop Thomas Grant school summed up the exercise by saying: “The session was fun, slightly scary, but really educational”.
Inspector Nicholas Fallowfield
Streatham and Norwood Safer Neighbourhoods Team
Streatham Police station,
101 Streatham High Road,
SW16 1HT
Phone: 020 8649 2267
Mobile: 07760 495355
E-mail: nicholas.fallowfield2@met.police.uk
Together we will reduce levels of serious violence in the London Borough of Lambeth
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