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The Home Office has ordered a review of the treatment of autistic people referred to the government's Preventing Deradicalisation programme, recognizing that a high number of minors with neurodiversity diagnoses appear in counter-terrorism cases.
The announcement follows a Financial Times investigation in October, which highlighted the scale of the trend, with specialist psychiatrists estimating that 13 per cent of police counter-terrorism work involves people with autism, a condition which affects just 1 per cent of the population.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper this week announced new measures to strengthen Britain's Prevent programme, which aims to identify people at risk of extremism and divert them from violence. She said the program needed to adapt to the growing number of young people attracted to violent ideologies online.
The Home Office will undertake a strategic review to improve support for people referred to Prevent “who are neurodivergent or suffer from mental health problems”, she said.
Once people with a suspected diagnosis are included, a quarter of those receiving deradicalisation support from Prevent's most serious 'Channel' stream are autistic, according to a 2021 internal Home Office analysis consulted by the FT and reported in the investigation.
The Home Office has never confirmed the existence of this research and – until now – has not publicly acknowledged a link between autism and Prevent referrals. The Homeland Security Analysis and Insight team, which compiled the 2021 study, is expected to contribute to the new study.
Experts who contributed to the FT investigation say that although autistic people are less likely to break the law than their neurotypical peers, they may be more vulnerable to grooming and radicalization. The National Autistic Society has warned that some autistic children are referred to Prevent because of a lack of adequate healthcare to manage their condition.
However, police and intelligence services have repeatedly drawn attention to the increase in the number of children involved in terrorist activities. Currently 13% of people investigated by MI5 counter-terrorism teams are under 18, a three-fold increase in the last three years. The number of young people under the age of 18 arrested for terrorist offenses increased from three in the year to September 2010, to 32 in the year ending September 2024. Children aged 11 to 15 year olds now account for 40 per cent of all referrals to Prevent.
This trend is raising concerns beyond the UK. A paper released earlier this month by the Five Eyes security group's allies – Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – said intelligence chiefs were “increasingly concerned” by the radicalization of minors who plan or undertake terrorist activities.
The document calls for better cooperation between law enforcement and academia to understand “vulnerability factors” linked to youth radicalization, including “neurodiversity and mental health.”
Jonathan Hall, the UK's independent reviewer of counter-terrorism legislation, was one of the first to call out the prevalence of autism among people referred to Prevent.
“It is hardly surprising that a social disruptor as significant as the internet would reveal new vulnerabilities, such as the presence of neurodivergent loner children in counter-terrorism cases,” he told the FT.
“A policy review is welcome, but it must be practical, and I suggest that to be effective it must start with the experiences of these children and young people. »
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