The blanket treatment by staff of the 10,300 Muslim prisoners in England and Wales as potential terrorists risks creating young men ready to embrace extremism on their release, the chief inspector of prisons warned yesterday.
Dame Anne Owers says the treatment of the rapidly growing population of Muslim prisoners as potential or actual extremists is prevalent throughout the prison system despite the fact that fewer than 1 percent are in prison for terrorist-related offenses.
The chief inspector also voices skepticism over claims by high security prison staff that gangs are forcing non-Muslim prisoners to convert to Islam through intimidation.
Her report says that while conversions are common they are more likely to be the result of better food at Ramadan, the benefits of protection within a group and the discipline and structure provided by observing Islam through prayer.
The report, published yesterday, is based on interviews with 164 Muslim prisoners in eight British prisons and young offender institutions, combined with prisoner surveys and inspection reports over the past three years.
The number of Muslims in prison in England and Wales has soared in recent years from 2,513, or 5 percent of the prison population, in 1994 to 6,571 or 8 percent in 2004 and to 10,300, more than 12 percent, in the latest figures.
“There has been considerable public focus on them as potential extremists and on prisons as the place where they may become radicalized, often through conversion — even though fewer than 1 percent are in prison for terrorist-related offences,” the chief inspector’s report says.
However, Owers says they are a far from homogenous group: “Some are birth Muslims, and others have converted. In prisoner surveys, 40 percent were Asian, 32 percent black, 11 percent white and 10 percent of mixed heritage. One of their main grievances was, however, that staff tended to think of them as a group, rather than as individuals, and too often through the lens of extremism and terrorism — whether that was to prevent, or detect, those issues.”
The chief inspector says the main finding from the surveys and interviews was that Muslim prisoners report more negatively on their prison experience, and particularly their safety and relationships with staff, than other prisoners.
The problem was most acute in high security prisons where three-quarters of Muslims interviewed said they felt unsafe, which was strongly linked to mistrust of the staff.
The one positive finding of the report was that the strengthening network of Muslim chaplains meant that Muslim prisoners are now more likely to have their faith needs met than other prisoners.
Owers says a “pervasive theme” of their interviews and reports was the lack of support and training provided to staff outside of briefings that related to violent extremism and radicalization.
“It would be naive to deny that there are, within the prison population, Muslims who hold radical extremist views, or who may be attracted to them for a variety of reasons. But that does not argue for a blanket security-led approach to Muslim prisoners in general,” the chief inspector said.
Owers says that without effective staff engagement with Muslims as individual prisoners “there is a real risk of a self-fulfilling prophecy: that the prison experience will create or entrench alienation and disaffection, so that prisons release into the community young men who are more likely to offend, or even embrace extremism.”
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in