York Council’s Children, Culture and Communities Scrutiny Committee heard referrals to Prevent had increased in the wake of last year’s Southport attack and as awareness of extremist beliefs has spread.
Council community safety lead Jane Mowat said referrals particularly of young people had gone up following the coronavirus pandemic but the increasing willingness of people to report concerns was positive.
It comes as there are currently three open cases in York’s Channel scheme, according to a council report on the issue.
Channel provides those referred to Prevent with voluntary support to address the reasons for them being drawn to extremist beliefs.
Prevent referral figures for York were not included in the report, but 6,922 referrals were made nationally in 2023-4 compared to 6,817 in 2022-3 according to the latest Government data.
Referrals in the North East Prevent Co-ordinator Region, which includes Yorkshire and the Humber, numbered 1,040 in 2023-4, down slightly from 1,042 referrals the year before.
The category with the highest number of referrals in the North East was conflicted, with 286.
It includes people who were referred for holding a mixture of views, incoherent ideologies or who shift between beliefs.
It was followed by 276 referrals relating to people who were found to be vulnerable but without any clear ideological link to concerns raised.
The specific ideology with the highest number of referrals in the North East was extreme right-wing views, totalling 202 in 2023-4.
It was followed by referrals for those holding Islamist beliefs, 87, and those relating to people being fixated with school massacres or mass violence, 24.
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A total of 20 of those referred were categorised as other which includes extreme views relating to the left, environmentalism, animal rights, separatist causes and Northern Ireland.
Views and behaviour categorised as ‘incel’, meaning involuntarily celibate and referring to misogyny and violent views towards women as a result of feeling rejected by them, accounted for 10 referrals.
A total of 135 people were found to be of no risk in terms of ideology and vulnerability after being referred.
Nationally, 2,489 of those referred were found to be vulnerable without a clear ideological link, with 1,314 referrals made for extreme right-wing views.
A total of 1,278 referrals related to people with conflicting ideologies, with 913 referrals linked to Islamism, 162 to school massacre and violence fixations and 54 for incel behaviour.
Referrals categorised as other totalled 126 with 581 of those referred found not to be at risk following assessments.
More than half of 2023-4 referrals in the North East, 610, were for under 18s, with 434 aged between 11 and 15 and 54 less than 10 years old.
Nationally, 892 referrals were for 16 to 17 year olds, 2,729 were for those aged between 11 and 15 and 297 were less than 10.
Most referrals in the North East came from educational institutions like schools, totalling 453, with the equivalent national figure numbering 2,788.
The second highest number of referrals were made to the police, 321 and 1,921 respectively, with 89 and 672 made through the health sector.
A total of 18 referrals in the North East and 156 nationally came from communities and 13 and 143 respectively came from family and friends.
Separately, there were 182 hate crimes recorded in York and North Yorkshire from April to December 2024, compared to 199 for the whole of 2023-4.
Those figures were down from 233 in 2021-2 but up from 168 in 2022-3.
The Council’s Head of Community Safety Ms Mowat said the rise in referrals locally followed an investment in training and awareness-raising across York and North Yorkshire.
She added while she could not go into detail on specific reasons for York referrals, many of them were related to social media activity including sharing videos with extreme content.
Ms Mowat chairs the local Channel Panel which assess Prevent referrals.
The official said: “The number of referrals have increased massively, the amount of cases coming into Channel is the highest I’ve ever seen.
“The biggest change we’ve seen is a rise in the number of young people coming through since the pandemic, some of that’s attributable to the isolation they were experiencing during lockdown and spending more time online.
“Most of it is around views being articulated in school or to a social worker quite often, but until we unpick that we don’t know what we don’t know.
“Nine times out of ten it’s just kids been curious kids, the beauty of the Prevent process is that they’re not being put into the criminal justice system it’s about explaining that some things they’ve been discussing or doing are not necessarily appropriate.”
Anyone concerned about the views or behaviour of someone can make a referral to Prevent in York to the council by calling 01904 555742, by emailing preventenquiries@york.gov.uk or by contacting North Yorkshire Police here: https://www.northyorkshire.police.uk/advice/advice-and-information/t/prevent/prevent/.
