How do we restore and heal instead of enforce and be punitive in our approach?

Over the past 20 years, the democracies of Western Europe have faced a major dilemma. Amid the constant threat of terrorist action by individuals or groups who have infiltrated our society, to what extent would we be justified in suspending or adapting some of the normal judicial safeguards which protect the freedom of the individual? To what extent is preventive detention a possibility? Before detaining someone, should one need to prove in the courts that that person is already guilty of a crime, as opposed to relying on secret service reports as to that person’s potentiality for committing a terrorist outrage?

In this situation, some people have pointed to a previous occasion when this country was faced by an internal enemy: the Second World War, when normal judicial procedures were suspended, and many people incarcerated without trial. They make the point that ours is just as much a wartime situation, with a powerful external enemy having allies within our society, who constitute an ever-present danger.

Another apparent parallel to wartime Britain has now emerged.

When the external enemy appears to have been materially defeated, what do you do with those British nationals who, having gone abroad to support that enemy, now wish to return to this country? The case of Shamima Begum has brought this problem dramatically before us; but she is merely one among many IS supporters who will now be wishing to return. In 1945-6, our courts had to deal with a number of cases of returning collaborators with the enemy; and, though the question of potential continuing danger did not on the whole arise at that time, there were various factors which led to serious inconsistencies

in the sentencing of individual cases.