Autistic people overreported to anti-extremism programmes, says charity

The treatment of autistic people who are referred to the government's Prevent scheme is to be challenged in the courts.

- Rajeev Syal

A human rights charity has written to Yvette Cooper arguing that the Prevent and Channel programmes, which seek to identify people at risk of extremism, are overreporting neurodivergent people in breach of equality laws. There are concerns that autistic people are being referred to the authorities owing to a lack of healthcare provision.

In a pre-action letter to the Home Office, Rights & Security International (RSI) has warned that it remains "deeply concerned about a potential ongoing failure to collect and analyse data on the protected characteristics of those referred to Prevent and that this constitutes an ongoing failure to comply with their public sector equality duty".