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Reported experience of crime in the last twelve months was low for all respondents. When they were victims of crime, Muslims are less likely to report the incident to the police Muslim concerns gravitated around problems of burglary drugs, public drinking and hate crime. Muslims had a higher baseline level of confidence in local police compared to the general population, but variables including young age, being male or the victim of crime in the last year had a negative impact on police confidence for Muslims and the general population. High police visibility but low police familiarity was exaggerated for Muslims who were far more likely to report seeing police or PCSO patrols in their area, but less likely to know individual officers by name or sight than the general population. The time-‐trend data suggest that overall Muslim attitudes and perceptions have been tracking those of the general population, albeit at an elevated level. There is though a mild effect in the 2005/06 survey where the views of Muslim respondents shifted slightly expressing less worry about volume crimes and a very slight increase in victimisation reporting. Relatedly, in the year following the 2005 London bombings, levels of community cohesion amongst Muslims declined markedly. This suggests that indicators contained in the BCS may be shaped by the issues that Prevent is focused upon. Levels of community cohesion within the Muslim community have subsequently recovered, intimating that Prevent is not having a uniformly negative impact upon community attitudes and perceptions.
The indicators derived from the BCS seek to provide a holistic form of assessment that understands Prevent policing as an integrated component within a local policing system. Indeed, the particular strength of this approach may be that such data accesses mainstream Muslim community voices, rather than those who are already enmeshed in the highly-‐charged and contentious politicised debates that Prevent attracts. The patterns detected across the cross-‐ sectional and time trend analyses, and in particular the consistency evident across a range of indicators and over time, supports the contention that Prevent policing does not appear to be a trigger for widespread alienation and disenchantment. Indeed, if anything, overall the majority of Muslim respondents tend to be more confident in and have higher opinions of the police than the general population. This is despite them being more concerned and effected by routine crime and disorder issues. Of course, this does not mean that there are not individuals and groups who are more negatively disposed, only that we should not assume that such views are widely prevalent. 71