By Professor John Robertson OBA

In the Guardian today, the above and:

The case is one of a growing number of school-shooting plots detected in the UK, where young men and boys are being inspired by online material glorifying US massacres, including the 1999 Columbine High School shooting. In the year to March 2024, 162 referrals were made to Prevent (the government-led counter-terrorism scheme) related to interest in school massacres, up 2% on the year before. Only 19 resulted in people being adopted for intervention and mentoring under the programme.¹

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/mar/02/i-hate-my-school-why-are-more-british-teenagers-plotting-shooting-attacks

The total number of referrals to Prevent in England and Wales:

In 2023/24, 6,922 individuals were referred to the Prevent Program in England and Wales, a key part of the UK government’s counter-terrorism strategy. People referred to Prevent are thought to be at risk of being radicalized into supporting or committing acts of terrorism.²

What is Prevent?

Prevent works by identifying individuals who may be at risk of being exploited by violent extremist narratives and drawn into terrorism; assessing the nature and the extent of their vulnerability, and, where necessary, providing an appropriate support package tailored to their needs.³

How many Prevent referrals in Scotland and what is the trend?

So Prevent referrals to Police Scotland 2017/2024 have been 104, 126, 100, 55, 91, 87 and 114.

The trend is clearly flat, no worse now than 6 years ago. There are no specific data on school shootings.

How do the Scottish figures compare with England and Wales?

All things being equal with Scotland, with 11 times the population in England and Wales, you might expect them to have had around 1 250 referrals but they had 6 922, 5.53 times as many.

Sources:

1. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/mar/02/i-hate-my-school-why-are-more-british-teenagers-plotting-shooting-attacks
2. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1552578/ew-prevent-referrals/#:~:text=In%202023%2F24%2C%206%2C922%20individuals%20were%20referred%20to%20the,radicalized%20into%20supporting%20or%20committing%20acts%20of%20terrorism.
3. https://www.scotland.police.uk/about-us/how-we-do-it/prevent-referral-data/prevent-in-scotland-q-a-briefing/