By KUNA,
London : Britain’s Home Secretary Jacqui Smith Wednesday announced an extra 300 police officers to work on preventing radicalisation as she warned it was not possible to “arrest our way” out of the terrorist threat.
Smith said terrorism was a “serious and growing threat” in this country and there had been successes in the important work of arrests and convictions.
But she warned, on BBC TV, “In the end we can’t arrest our way out of the terrorist threat.
We need to prevent people from becoming terrorists and supporting terrorists in the first place.” “That means challenging the sort of ideology that supports terrorism, it means working in our communities to make sure that those mainstream voices are stronger, it means identifying people who might be at risk of being drawn into terrorism and violent extremism.” The Home Secretary said police officers could help with this sort of preventive work, in partnership with other groups.
“That is why we are investing in police officers to pursue and to disrupt terrorist plots but also to prevent people turning to terrorism in the first place,” she added.
In a speech later today, Smith is expected to say “We recognise that we can neither arrest our way out of the problems we face nor protect ourselves to the point where the threat disappears.” “We need to dissuade that very small minority of people who wish to harm our communities from becoming or supporting terrorists. That is the long-term challenge,” according to extracts of her remarks released officially here.
She was adding “I believe the resources allocated now to preventing terrorism work will enable us to develop a new kind of counter-terrorist policing, building upon and alongside your existing work.” The move comes amid debate over controversial plans to extend the time limit for holding terror suspects without charge to 42 days.
Under the proposals, the Home Secretary would be able to immediately extend the limit to 42 days if a joint report by a Chief Constable of Police and the Director of Public Prosecutions backed the move.
The House of Commons and the House of Lords would have to approve the extension within 30 days and, if either House voted against it, the power would come to an end at midnight on the day of the debate.
Last weekend, Smith warned critics of the plans that as many as 30 active plots against the UK were now being probed.
Asked on BBC TV about the plans, she said, “Senior police officers have told me that they are concerned that in the future, given the complexity and the nature of the threats that we face, they might need longer than 28 days in order to fully investigate and bring somebody to charge.” “What we are doing is putting forward a reserve power which, if we need it in the future, is there to make sure that we can fully investigate and bring to justice those people who are plotting now to carry out serious terrorist threats against this country,” the Home Secretary concluded.