News / Society

UK Prison cuts are “fuelling extremism”

Tuesday, 07 April 2015 1:19 PM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 07 April 2015 1:18 PM ]

File picture of a prison in Britain

The UK government has again been slammed for prison cuts that are making it “harder to tackle Islamic radicalization”

The former head of the National Counter Terrorism Security Office, Chris Phillips has warned that staff shortages, due to the cuts, mean prisoners cannot be properly monitored, leaving extremists open to recruit others freely.

The government has cut the number of prison officers by almost 30% in the last five years, as part of wide-reaching budget cuts to public services in the country. The move has been widely criticized.

In a recent parliamentary report, the Justice Select Committee, has said jail safety has significantly deteriorated because of the cuts

Adding to the chorus of criticism, the former Lord Chief Justice Lord Woolf has recently commented that Britain is heading for a serious crisis within prisons because of overcrowding and staff shortages.

Britain’s prisons are overcrowded. The prison service itself says it can only hold 76,756 prisoners in decent and safe accommodation. There are nearing 86,000 prisoners in England and Wales, almost 10,000 higher than that level.

There are about 12,000 Muslims in jails across England and Wales, only about 100 in Britain are in jail for terrorism offenses.

Research by the former chief of inspectors of prisons, Dame Anne Owers, shows that converts to Islam are more likely to be vulnerable to extremism. But her report also says that “suspicion of Muslim prisoners could be both unfair and counter-productive, fueling resentment and causing even more trouble.”

This is a sentiment shared by former Muslim prisoners who say they were labelled as “extremists” or for “recruiting extremists” just because they talked to other inmates about Islam and helped convert them.

The government rejects the idea that staff shortages are allowing a breeding ground for extremism in prisons.

NM/HA

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