Britain to create isolation units in a bid to tackle extremism in jails

The British government plans to isolate extremist inmates in special units in high security jails to limit their ability to radicalise other inmates, the government says.

Justice Secretary Liz Truss said she was taking action to stop the “spread of this poisonous ideology behind bars”, including training officers to intercept activity that could influence vulnerable prisoners.

In an interview with the BBC, she argued for the policy’s necessity, saying, “there are a small number of individuals, very subversive individuals, who do need to be held in separate units.”

Truss said she had learnt from the radicalization of prisoners in Northern Ireland during the 1980s, where paramilitary prisoners from both republican and loyalist sides of the troubles were able to organize themselves within the system.

The BBC reported that there was a fear of tackling extremist ideology on an institutional level in prisons because staff were afraid of being labeled racist.

This new counter-terrorism policy will have a powerful influence on the UK’s prison complex. It comprises of over 43,000 directly employed staff across multiple sites that engages with many local partner agencies and structures.

The government move comes as Britain's most notorious extremism preacher, Anjem Choudary, is due to be sentenced next month after being found guilty of encouraging support for Daesh terrorists.

Daesh terrorists, many of whom were initially trained by the CIA in Jordan in 2012 to destabilize the Syrian government, still control parts of Iraq and Syria. They have been engaged in crimes against humanity in areas under their control.

Prisoners could even be removed from communal prayers for spreading anti-British values.

Muslim chaplains who offer guidance to a growing number of prisoners are not off limits either, as the new measures will see that they undergo “tightened vetting” before being allowed near Muslim inmates.

Official figures show there are now more than 12,600 Muslims in prison in England and Wales, while the figure was just 8,200 a decade earlier.

A government-ordered review into radicalization in jails has also been published on Monday. The full report is classified but the Ministry of Justice published a summary of the main findings.

Prison officers will from October start to wear body cameras to improve evidence collection for offences and other activities in jails.

The UK as well as the rest of Europe are tightening counter terrorism strategies. Before this plan to toughen up monitoring of prisoners, the UK had already enforced an institutional policy of screening school children for signs of radicalization under the so-called “Prevent” program.

However, critics believe the program is counter-productive, victimizes children and discriminates against Muslims. 

Critics say the majority of people in the West have a very limited knowledge about Islam and have mostly received false information about the religion.

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