Extremists terrorising our jails
RALMOST every film or documentary I’ve ever seen that’s set in a high-security US prison shows that most are run tight as a drum. Prisoners are not necessarily ill-treated (we’ll set aside Guantanamo, obviously) but they’re subject to rigid rules and procedures that serve a triple function: guards are kept safe, prisoners are kept safe, and the public is kept safe.ThinkTom Hanks inThe Green Mile.Tough but humane.
Compare and contrast to the running disaster movie that is the British prison service.
Last week at HMPWhitemoor, five prison officers had to be ambulanced to hospital, after two men serving sentences for terrorism offences burst out of their cells when they were routinely opened at breakfast-time.
Wearing fake suicide belts and brandishing blades, they set upon the nearest officer, slashing him in the face while screaming Allahu akbar (God is greater).
One of the attackers, in what became a bloody melee, was alleged to be the odious Brusthom Ziamani, right, banged up five years ago for plotting to behead an army cadet.
Do planned crimes of violence come any worse than that?
Beheading? Since being locked up (I use the term loosely) Ziamani has run Sharia courts in prison and risen to the top of a nasty little bunch of like-minded extremists.
At his previous jail, HMP Woodhill, he ran patrols up and down his block to check other Muslims weren’t breaking fast during Ramadan.
An investigation by The Times revealed that Islamic extremists at Woodhill “arrest” prisoners found to be drinking alcohol and subject them to savage punishment beatings.
There are constant attempts to radicalise inmates, lecturing them on the evils of our infidel Queen, demanding she be “fought to the death”.
Prison officers mutter of being cowed by the fear of being accused of racism or Islamophobia if they crack down on extremists.
I’m sure they are – and this is where that nonsense leads: terrorists who appear to be doing pretty much as they please behind bars.
Our new Home Secretary Priti Patel seems like the dynamic type to me. She should commission an urgent review into the near-total breakdown of law and order in (of all places) our so-called high-security prisons, with powers to make root-and-branch recommendations for sweeping reforms.
No one’s arguing for Guantanamo in the UK, or the inhumanity of solitary confinement. But properly enforced lockdown of terrorist convicts, preventing them from associating with like-minded extremists, would be a start. So would effective control of access to them. How are they getting their hands on blades and materials to make fake suicide belts?
Why are they allowed the time and space to hold Sharia courts and administer punishments, not to mention co-ordinated attacks on prison officers?
I suggest a working party visit to one of America’s supermax jails, because on this side of the pond we’re clearly clean out of confidence – and ideas.