Phil Henry: Firepower alone will not end this threat

THE presence of armed police in the UK is a debate that has been contested since the 19th century.
Should there be more armed police?Should there be more armed police?
Should there be more armed police?

Today, the numbers of Authorised Firearms Officers (AFOs) and Armed Response Vehicles (ARVs) across the nation, and their deployment in the event of life-threatening and other incidents, including terrorism, remains largely undisclosed by individual police forces for operational reasons.

Yet we know from Home Office data released in April last year that, despite a commitment by the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) to increase the number of such officers after the Paris attacks in November 2015, the numbers of trained firearms officers dropped to a recorded 5,639 by last March.

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DCC Simon Chesterman, the NPCC officer responsible for armed policing, qualified the reduction, stating: “The fall in the number of authorised firearms officers over recent years reflects the fact that forces in England and Wales have moved to more collaborative arrangements, with armed officers working regionally rather than in individual forces. Decisions on numbers were based on local threat and risk assessments.”

However terrorist incidents at Westminster Bridge, Manchester Arena and now London Bridge and Borough Market have brought the question of the numbers of AFOs into focus, and questions about their capacity and flexibility beyond the capital.

The intention is to increase the AFOs to around 7,000 officers by the end of 2018. This figure was previously the norm at the beginning of the decade.

What are the likely outcomes in the provinces should a terrorist incident occur? We should consider the numbers of firearms incidents from 2015-2016.

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A recorded total of 14,753 police firearms operations occurred in England and Wales in 2015-16, an increase of 68 incidents – 0.5 per cent – on the previous year. It was at odds with the previous six years when the number of firearms operations fell by 36 per cent.

It suggests an adequate amount of cover of AVRs in the provinces. If numbers of AFOs do increase, so should the cover.

Reducing the terror threat is not contingent on the capacity of trained firearms officers being able to manage potential incidents; we saw how 
effective that was on Saturday night in London.

Rather it depends on a greater coming together in communities, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, to develop a proactive resilience that does not seek to only bounce back in the face of adversity, but challenges and is determined to remove radicalising influences from our streets, from schools and from the internet.

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It requires trust in authority (something we have not always been good at in the last 30 years), in order to make the radical Islamists’ efforts to allow dehumanising rhetoric to displace moral responsibility unacceptable.

We are all challenged with the task of addressing the element of terrorism that is least well defined in public discourse, and that is at the level of communication.

It may seem a hard pill to swallow in light of recent events, but to dehumanise those who dehumanise their victims (as in the last three terror attacks in the UK) only plays into their narrative and allows them to morally disengage.

Confronting an individual with a moral identity, working with those at risk of radicalisation, or engaged in that process, requires attention to the human condition, of empathetic disclosure of human feelings, needs and values.

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This, of course, is not an easy option, but in fact there are no easy options, and it is likely we have already lost this opportunity with the current wave of ‘new jihadists’.

This does not preclude us from protecting future generations however, and if the ‘Prevent’ programme is the 
only approach available, resource it adequately and extend its reach inexorably to bring about real conversations about difficult issues and engage with anti-extremism education which has real teeth, rather than paying lip service to the ideals.

We must get under the skin of dissatisfaction, lack of social mobility and associated lack of opportunity, demythologise the rhetoric of hate preachers and speakers, and recast inclusion to mean inclusion, which requires governments, public agencies, communities, leaders and young people to break down the generational barriers.

Dr Phil Henry is Senior Lecturer in Sociology & Criminology at the University of Derby.