The Prevent Strategy in (Mental) Healthcare: Securitized Care Pathways under Austerity

Centre for the Study of Critical Psychology and Education Seminar

5 December 2018, 4.30-6.00pm

Since 2015, all healthcare organisations have been made responsible for detecting and reporting potential terrorists to Prevent. Simultaneously, economic austerity policies have drastically cut funding for UK healthcare and social services, with mental health provision seriously affected. While the two policy programs appear unconnected, the coalition and Conservative governments have framed the Prevent program as a new care pathway, one which allocates services, support and mentoring (only) to those deemed at-risk of becoming terrorists. Amidst the deconstruction of the welfare state, security has become care — and care is becoming associated with the provision of national security. A care-security hybrid is upon us.

This presentation draws upon a Wellcome Trust funded study of Prevent’s implementation in the NHS to question its framing as a safeguarding measure, and to raise concerns about Prevent’s place in the restructuring of the welfare state. The mental health sector provides heated evidence of this care-security hybrid — and its contestation by professionals. Prevent in mental health conflates, then attempts to deconflate, radicalisation and mental illness — enacting biopolitical security in overlapping, re-bordering and intensely surveillant ways.

Dr Charlotte Heath-Kelly is an Associate Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick.

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