Muslim prisoners 'treated as potential terrorists'

 

Brixton prison. Photograph: Martin Godwin

 

Attitude risks creating extremism, watchdog warns amid scepticism over claims of forced conversion to Islam

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 warns today.

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% are in prison for terrorist-related offences.

The chief inspector also voices scepticism 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 today, is based on interviews with 164 Muslim prisoners in eight 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% of the prison population, in 1994 to 6,571 or 8% in 2004 and to 10,300, more than 12%, on the latest figures.

"There has been considerable public focus on them as potential extremists and on prisons as the place where they may become radicalised, often through conversion – even though fewer than 1% are in prison for terrorist-related offences," says the chief inspector's report.

But Owers says they are a far from homogenous group: "Some are birth Muslims, and others have converted. In prisoner surveys, 40% were Asian, 32% black, 11% white and 10% 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 radicalisation.

"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," said the chief inspector.

Owers says that without effective staff engagement with Muslims as individual prisoners "there is a real risk of a self-fulfilling prophesy: 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."

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