Suspects Not Students
In this Blog post, Nicole Nguyen, reflects on her article, “‘The Eyes and Ears on Our Frontlines’: Policing without Police to Counter Violent Extremism,” which was published recently in Surveillance & Society
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In 2015, Minneapolis Public Schools hired youth intervention workers to “spot identity issues and disaffection” believed to be the “root causes of radicalization” among Somali youth. To address the perceived rise of homegrown terrorism in the United States, federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies increasingly have called on teachers, mental health professionals, and other social service providers to challenge extremist propaganda and identify, report, and work with youth perceived to be vulnerable to terrorist radicalization. Since the Obama administration, these efforts have been promoted as a progressive alternative to more conventional antiterrorism initiatives that rely heavily on law enforcement, such as FBI stings and preemptive prosecutions. In this view, conscripting teachers and other caring professionals into local antiterrorism efforts has offered a less punitive and more holistic approach to fighting homegrown terrorism.
Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) programs have cast suspicion on the ordinary experiences of immigrant children navigating a new social system, ultimately transforming schools into sites of surveillance.
Although community leaders and government officials have applauded these Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) initiatives as a community-driven response to the lure of terrorist recruiters, Muslim youth continue to worry that trusted adults will come to view their thoughts, cultures, and beliefs as potential signs of terrorist radicalization. In Maryland, adults identified immigrant children experiencing “acculturation-related stress,” “feelings of alienation,” and “economic stressors” as possibly “at risk of violent extremism.” The Denver Police Department similarly argued that “those most vulnerable to terrorist radicalization are disenfranchised and not integrated into their communities,” such as immigrants and refugees. CVE programs have cast suspicion on the ordinary experiences of immigrant children navigating a new social system, ultimately transforming schools into sites of surveillance. Teachers, guidance counselors, and youth interventions workers have taken on the functions of the police by identifying and reporting children perceived to be at-risk of violent extremism. These caring professionals have done so to protect children from terrorist influences. Yet, what happens when we task trusted adults with contributing to the securing of society by monitoring their own children, particularly when 61% of US residents expressed unfavorable views of Islam? How does this antiterrorism agenda transform safe spaces such as schools, mosques, and therapists’ offices centers into sites of surveillance and therefore intensify the school-to-prison pipeline and the clinic-to-prison pipeline? How do Muslim children understand and experience the process of receiving social services otherwise unavailable to them, such as soccer leagues and mental health counseling, as ticking timebombs rather than as deserving citizens?
