A record number of people have been referred to Prevent’s counterterrorism programme as the total has risen by 39 per cent in 12 months, the Home Office has confirmed.
In the year to September 2025, there were 10,293 referrals to the anti-extremism programme.
The figure is up 39 per cent from the previous 12 months and is the highest number of referrals in a single year since data began in 2015.
The year-on-year rise works out at roughly eight additional referrals to Prevent a day compared to the previous year.
Referrals averaged at about 20.3 a day in the previous year before growing to 28.2 a day this year.
Children now account for over half of all referrals where there is a known age, the data revealed.
There are three different categories of ages for those under-18: 10 or under, 11 to 15 and 16 to 17.
For children 10 or under, there were 393 referrals (four per cent), for 11 to 15-year-olds there was 3,655 (36 per cent) and 1,379 16 to 17-year-olds (17 per cent) were referred to the anti-extremism scheme.
Referrals to Prevent programme in England and Wales
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This accounts for 52.8 per cent of all referrals where age is recorded – more than one in two Prevent cases last year involved a child.
The spike came, the Home Office said, after the Southport attacks in July 2024.
Axel Rudakubana, who killed three children at a dance class as well as injuring 10 others, was referred to Prevent three times, but had his case closed due to a lack of distinct ideology.
On July 29, 2024, the then-17-year-old killed nine-year-old Alice da Silva Aguiar, seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe and six-year-old Bebe King at a Taylor Swift–themed dance class.
A Government review following the murders found his case was “prematurely” closed.
Officers working on his case within Prevent also had “sufficient information” to refer his case to the safeguarding programme, Channel.
Channel is essentially the next stage to Prevent, providing tailored, early support to people who have been assessed as susceptible to radicalisation and at risk of being drawn to terrorism.
The review called for stronger risk assessments, particularly around spotting radicalisation indicators where no single coherent ideology is present.
It also highlighted the risk of underestimating the significance of repeat referrals involving the same individual.
Extreme right-wing ideology was behind one in five Prevent referrals in the year to September 2025.
The number of referrals citing this concern jumped 42 per cent from the previous year (from 1,480 to 2,103).
Islamist extremism accounted for eight per cent of referrals.
A separate category, covering fascination with extreme violence or mass casualty attacks, made up another eight per cent.
Referrals to Prevent programme by type of ideology
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Incel extremism, an ideology which pushes violent hatred towards women, was cited in one per cent of referrals and left-wing extremism just 0.3 per cent.
The single largest category by far was “no identified ideology”.
This applied in 56 per cent of all referrals.
The Home Office said the radicalisation landscape is becoming increasingly fragmented, with many people being flagged before any definitive ideology has formed.
Shabana Mahmood’s department also released ethnicity data on those referred to Prevent.
However, this information is optional and can be left blank.
Just 5,312 referrals (52 per cent) included an ethnicity record.
Among those, 68 per cent were recorded as white, 18 per cent as Asian, eight per cent as black and seven per cent as “other”.
The figures were for England and Wales only.