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Sunday, August 21, 2016

Extremist Prisoners To Be Held In Separate Units

Convicted extremists who promote terror and violence will be isolated from the rest of the prison population under new plans to be announced by the Government.
The recommendation is in response to a government-ordered review into radicalisation in jails, which will be unveiled later by Justice Secretary Liz Truss.
It comes just days after it was revealed that Anjem Choudary, one of Britain's most prominent Islamist clerics, was convicted over drumming up support for Islamic State.
He faces years behind bars, prompting fears he could influence other inmates and recruit them to the terror group.
The review revealed that "charismatic" prisoners were found to have exerted a "radicalising influence" on the wider Muslim population in jail, and were acting as "self-styled emirs" behind bars.
Other examples cited were:
:: Aggressive encouragement of conversions to Islam;
:: Unsupervised collective worship, sometimes at Friday Prayers - including pressure on supervising staff to leave the prayer room;
:: Attempts to engineer segregation by landing, by wing, or even by prison and prevent staff searches by claiming dress is religious;
:: Books and educational materials promoting extremist literature in chaplaincy libraries;
:: Intimidation of prison imams and "exploitation of staff fear of being labelled racist".
Plans to create specialist units within prisons to remove the most "dangerous extremists" from the general population was one of the review's key recommendations.
Measures also include improving extremism prevention training for all officers and strengthened vetting of prison chaplains.
Governors will also be instructed to ban extremist literature and remove anyone from Friday prayers who is "promoting anti-British beliefs or other dangerous views".
Speaking ahead of her announcement, Ms Truss said: "Islamist extremism is a danger to society and a threat to public safety - it must be defeated wherever it is found.
"I am committed to confronting and countering the spread of this poisonous ideology behind bars.
"Preventing the most dangerous extremists from radicalising other prisoners is essential to the safe running of our prisons and fundamental to public protection."
Shadow prisons minister Jo Stevens claimed the issue of radicalisation of vulnerable Muslim inmates and growing extremism in prisons "has been ignored by the Tories for over five years".
Citing record levels of violence and a growing prison population, she added: "It's little wonder overstretched prisons have been unable to address the problem."address the problem."
Figures show there were 12,633 Muslims in prison in England and Wales as of the end of June. The number stood at 8,243 a decade earlier.
As at the end of March, of the 147 people in prison for terrorism-related offences, 137 of them considered themselves to be Muslim.

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