Maggie Blyth – the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s lead for violence against women and girls – has said that boys should be taught how to combat misogynistic influencers such as Andrew Tate.
Blyth said younger children should be informed about boundaries and the consequences of “unchecked” online behaviour to try to reduce the number of predators in society.
According to The Times:
She (Blyth) said: “I think there’s so much more that must and should be done at primary school into secondary about boys’ behaviour, and what boys feel they get away with.
“The exacerbated risk around Instagram and Snapchat, where behaviour goes on online that is unchecked — sharing of images, pornography, misogyny. The whole Andrew Tate line is really grave.”
Blyth’s area of responsibility has been escalated to a national priority, alongside terrorism, serious organised crime and child abuse. She said that forces were beginning to profile, predict and target male predators in the same way that they approached suspected extremists.
In a wide-ranging interview she outlined new measures, including accrediting detectives who carried out public protection work for the first time, and installing domestic violence specialists alongside detectives to improve the approach to victims.
However, she said the problem was “much bigger than policing” as forces could not arrest their way out of male violence and misogyny issues. Some offenders would receive community sentences instead of prison while others would not reach the threshold for conviction, so a whole-of-society approach was necessary, she said.
Blyth said: “We know that we won’t be putting every offender or suspect of these types of crime in prison. We have to be aware we’re dealing with a lot of risk in our society.
“Being clear about the modus operandi of the ones that are dangerous, and trying to be able to predict that, is the way to go.
But it’s very difficult and complex because risk is changing every day. The bigger debate for society is around prevention.
And how do we stop men and boys developing a [harmful] type of behaviour or attitude?”
She said that education and a public health response to violence was essential. Her team is working with the Department of Education to produce a package that could be used in schools.
