Study:
Radical Muslim Inmates Rule UK Prisons
by Patrick Dunleavy
IPT News
June 18, 2019
|
|
|
|
Share:  
|
  Be the
first of your friends to like this.
One group, radicalized Muslims, dominates the UK prison system,
Britain's Ministry of Justice found in a study into prison gangs released earlier this month.
The study included interviews with 83 inmates and 73 staffers from
several prisons.
Operating as a prison gang, the group calls itself the "brotherhood." And while it
doesn't appear connected to the Egyptian Islamist movement, it does try to
enforce its version of Islamic law on all prisoners regardless of faith.
Rules cover personal hygiene and what inmates are allowed to eat in their
cell block. Some inmates may be forced to pay a tax to the Muslim
brotherhood.
In fundamentalist Islam, non-believers pay a tax known as
"jizya."
The brotherhood "was the only group mentioned by staff and
prisoners; they did not consider there to be any other significant groups
of prisoners," the report said. Most members simply wanted "to practice
their faith peacefully and become more immersed in the scriptures of Islam
as a framework to elicit change in their life and to cope with
custody," it said, something prison staff viewed as positive.
But an influential element takes advantage of the situation "to be
anti-authority, violent and intimidating."
The researchers acknowledge that some members of the Muslim gang they
interviewed may have been instructed to mask the gang's nature and minimize
its influence in the general prison population.
Obedience is achieved by violence and intimidation carried out by
members of the group known as enforcers. "Those who had committed
terrorist crimes often held more senior roles in the gang," the study found, "facilitated by the respect some younger
prisoners gave them."
Leadership gives the orders for all acts of violence. No member acts on
his own. If he does, one inmate said, he is taken aside by a leader.
In my experience, the term "take them aside" usually refers to
a new convert being instructed as to who is in charge of the group. If he
does not listen the first time, he will be subjected to some form of
discipline which may include corporal punishment.
The study described the leaders as manipulative, dominating, and
outspoken and yet found they were able to portray themselves to prison
staff as compliant and polite. In other words, "jail wise."
The leadership expanded from a single cell block, to a particular
prison, and to the prison system as a whole. Muslim gang leaders were able
to communicate from prison to prison even so far as to order a hit on an
inmate who had transferred to a different facility.
Other roles identified were recruiters, foot soldiers, followers, and
enforcers. The followers consisted of recent jailhouse converts new to
Islam.
But inmates described tremendous risks if they had a change of heart.
That includes significant violence that might follow an inmate transferred
from one high security prison to another.
"Once I go to a [lower security prison], I'll say goodbye to
Islam," one inmate told researchers. "If I said I didn't want to be a
Muslim, I'd need to watch out in case someone stabbed me. It's very
dangerous to denounce Islam."
The brotherhood controlled all of the criminal activity in the prison
system which included contraband, smuggling and extortion.
Since Muslims account for only 15 percent of the overall UK prison
population, one might reasonably wonder how so small a group was able to
dominate. Should authorities have seen this coming?
Research (historical reports) shows they should have.
U.S. and allied intelligence services including the CIA, NSA, Defense
and State Departments conducted a study after 9/11, called
"Terrorists: Recruiting and Operating Behind Bars."
I was assigned to "Operation Hades" at the time, a
multifaceted investigative group of federal, state, and local agents,
analysts, and law enforcement officers tasked with exploring the level of
radical Islamic recruitment in the prison system.
The study found that terrorist groups such as al-Qaida did not see
prison as an obstacle. Quite the opposite, they viewed it as an opportunity
to organize and expand.
In prison, terrorists designed an organizational structure providing
specific roles for each member, roles identical to what was just found in
the UK; leaders, recruiters, enforcers, foot soldiers. The intelligence
report also said that terrorists would operate their group in prison like a
"brotherhood," and that recruitment would thrive because they had
a large "pool of vulnerable people" from which to draw.
Success was defined by the depth of control, whether it was a specific
cell block, one prison, or a group of prisons. The report pointed to Turkey
as an example of what could happen if prison administrators ignored a
terror group's influence. There, the terrorists were able take control of
the entire prison system, not through a riot but by organizing and
intimidation.
The similarities in the two reports – written on two continents, 17
years apart – demonstrate the consistency of terror groups' behavior when
it comes to incarceration.
The 2002 report's recommendations to thwart terrorist activities in the
prison system included identifying known leaders, disrupting communication
and recruitment efforts, and building a liaison between the
counterterrorism community and prison administrators.
Once leaders were identified, they could easily be isolated from other
inmates or transferred to other prisons.
Prison authorities are legally permitted to listen to telephone calls
and review inmate correspondence. The intelligence gathered from these
methods could then be shared with outside agencies to help identify any
external extremist links or plots.
Recruitment can be disrupted through properly-vetted Muslim clergy who
promote an alternative ideology to jihadism. Islamist leaning inmates
should not be permitted to preach or lead pray services in the prison
mosque.
Taking no action, in light of what the UK study found, is not an
acceptable option.
Failure to build a vibrant relationship between prison authorities and
intelligence services would only lead to terror organizations growing in
ranks through prison recruitment, the 2002 report warned.
The United States seems to have fared better curbing radical Islamic
groups organizing in the prison system than our UK and EU counterparts. This
may be due in part to the Correctional Intelligence Initiative program
operated by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), which continues to
build on the recommendations of the 2002 report.
If there is one shortcoming, it is in the area of post-release
supervision of convicted terrorists.
As we have previously reported, more terrorists are being released
from custody with no viable de-radicalization program or monitoring system
in place.
Where they live or work, as well as any social media involvement after
their release, needs to be strictly monitored. Any important intelligence
gleaned from this should be shared across the board with participating
agencies. International travel should also be restricted.
The UK study recommended the use of "mentors from similar
backgrounds to the prisoners," and increased training for staff in
Islamic culture as a means of decreasing the radical Muslim gang's
influence. This is similar to the findings in a study by George Washington
University's Program on Extremism, which recommended earlier intervention for those most vulnerable. Those
measures fall short of solving the problem, however, and would not address
the threat posed by those already incarcerated for terrorist acts.
People like Anjem Choudary or John Walker Lindh, who never renounced their radical
Islamic ideology despite years incarcerated, will continue to negatively
influence the Muslim inmate population.
A recent collaborative work being done by Mitch Silber,
former director of intelligence analysis for the New York Police
Department, and convicted terrorist Jesse Morton may be a step in the right direction.
Before being assigned to the NYPD, Silber was a CIA intelligence
analyst. Morton, formerly known as Younus Abdullah Muhammed, founded Revolution Muslim, a radical Islamic group that
called for the deaths of South Park writers Matt Stone
and Trey Parker. Morton spent nearly three years in a federal prison. He
has renounced the radical Islamic ideology he once held.
They hope to tap their combined experiences to counter the radical
Islamic ideology and develop a viable de-radicalization program to help
other released extremists follow Morton's path.
But that's just two people working on their own. The time to address
this glaring deficiency in our counter-terrorism program is now. Any
further delay will only benefit the terrorists.
IPT Senior Fellow Patrick Dunleavy is the former Deputy Inspector
General for New York State Department of Corrections and author of The Fertile Soil of Jihad. He currently
teaches a class on terrorism for the United States Military Special
Operations School.
Related Topics: Patrick
Dunleavy, prison
radicalization, prison
gangs, UK
prisons, released
terrorists, recruitment,
Operation
Hades, Mitch
Silber, Jesse
Morton, GW
Program on Extremism, Revolution
Muslim
|
Print
Send
RSS
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment