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UK report warns of impact of Islamist groups in prisons
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For the last 15 years groups of prisoners had adopted "an anti-state Islamist stance" that condones or encourages violence towards non-Muslim prisoners, prison officers and the general public
The US News reported, citing Reuters, an independent report into the UK prison service said that Britain's prisons have failed to recognise the dangers of Islamist "gang-type activity" and the impact of Islamist groups has been underestimated for too long by authorities.
The landmark review on "Terrorism in Prisons" said that for the last 15 years groups of prisoners had adopted "an anti-state Islamist stance" that condones or encourages violence towards non-Muslim prisoners, prison officers and the general public.
The review was commissioned after a 2019 attack near London Bridge in which Usman Khan, a convicted Islamist militant who had been released early from prison, killed two people.
The report said there was a clear strand of prison behaviour that could be illustrated by referring to Khan's time there. The review said: "Much but not all of it is related to Usman Khan’s role in Islamist groups within the prison."
The report said that Islamist group behaviour had come to be seen as part of the prison landscape. It warned that militants who have been convicted of serious offences tended to exert influence within groups of prisoners.
The report said there was an understandable fear of discriminating against Muslim prisoners generally by focusing on a particular "flavour of gang-type behaviour."
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It cited a tendency to regard Islam as a "no-go area" leading both to a reluctance to focus on Islamist group behaviour and an overloading of responsibility on prison imams.
The review said: "The point is to ensure that terrorist-risk behaviour...is nipped in the bud, and take action to ensure that Islamist groups are not the dominant source of prisoner power and that prisoners do not feel the need to adopt particular pro-terrorist identities in order to fit in."
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After the review, justice minister Dominic Raab announced a raft of measures on Wednesday (Apr 27) including the use of "Separation Centres" in prisons to target what the government said were "influential and charismatic terrorists" to keep them away from the main prison population.
Source: usnews
