Authored by Joanna Williams via Spiked,
What is going on with Britain's children? Last year, more than 6,000 under-18s were referred to Prevent, the UK government's counter-terrorism scheme, with a record number reported for being obsessed with mass violence and extremism. Believe the headlines, and we are raising a generation of committed terrorists and murderous nihilists. But scratch beneath the surface, and a far more complex picture of adult failure begins to emerge.
Clearly, some children really are attracted to terrorism and extreme violence. Last week, Yusuf Shah was convicted of providing cybersecurity support to groups including al-Qaeda. He was just 16 when he was arrested at Heathrow Airport and was found to have downloaded instructions for making explosives and using different types of weapons. In 2024, Axel Rudakubana was 17 years old when he entered a dance class in Southport, killing three girls and injuring eight other children and two adults with a kitchen knife. And in 2018, 18-year-old Safaa Boular became Britain's youngest convicted female Islamic State terrorist after she helped plan an attack on the British Museum in London.
Yet in all three of these cases, these terrorists were either not
