Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many children under the age of 18 were referred to Prevent in each year between April 2015 and April 2020 by (a) gender, (b) ethnicity and (c) religion of the individual referred.
Since 2012, 2,897 people have been adopted to Prevent’s voluntary and confidential multi-agency Channel programme, which supports people who are vulnerable to exploitation from terrorist influences.
Below is data on the gender and age of those under the age of 18 who were referred to Prevent and adopted to Channel. Please note the ‘-‘ symbol has been used where the number of individuals in a category is less than 10.
Gender of those under the age of 18 referred to Prevent, 2015/16 to 2019/20 | |||||
| Year | ||||
Gender | 2015/16 | 2016/17 | 2017/18 | 2018/19 | 2019/20 |
Male | 2,799 | 2,367 | 3,116 | 2,495 | 2,532 |
Female | 829 | 550 | 436 | 382 | 373 |
Other | - | - | - | - | 10 |
Unknown | - | - | - | - | 0 |
Total | 3,630 | 2,918 | 3,556 | 2,879 | 2,915 |
Gender of those under the age of 18 adopted as a Channel case, 2015/16 to 2019/20 | |||||
| Year | ||||
Gender | 2015/16 | 2016/17 | 2017/18 | 2018/19 | 2019/20 |
Male | 191 | 176 | 200 | 282 | 320 |
Female | 39 | 23 | 13 | 34 | 38 |
Other | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | - |
Unknown | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | - |
Total | 230 | 199 | 213 | 316 | 360 |
The Channel process is entirely voluntary and those under-18 must have the consent of their parent/guardian to be adopted as a Channel case.
Recording the ethnicity and religion of individuals who have been considered as a Channel case is not mandatory on the Home Office Case Management Information System. We therefore only hold partial data on the ethnicity or religion of Prevent referrals and Channel cases. This partial data cannot be released as it would create a misleading and inaccurate picture of the ethnic/religious make-up of Channel referrals aged under 18.