Captive audience is easy prey for the jail jihadists
AND I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you. . .
The quote was famously adapted from Ezekiel 25:17 by Samuel L Jackson in the movie Pulp Fiction. More recently it has been printed on the back of cards handed out to inmates by a prison gang called the Pirhanhas. The Pirhanhas were formed by prisoners from Manchester and Liverpool in 2014, and claimed their purpose was to protect themselves from radical Muslim inmates who had been attacking, extorting, and trying to convert inmates in high-security prisons.
Now, the government has opened the first of three separation units - nicknamed ‘jihadi jails’ - for extremists. The new initiative follows a report from Ian Acheson, a former prison officer who warns that Islamic extremists present a ‘growing problem’ in prisons, and that the threat of radicalisation can expected to grow as jihadis return from warzones. The disproportionate representation of Muslims in the criminal justice system fuels the problem - chiming with the Muslim victimisation narrative radicalisers use to recruit. Acheson’s report also described how ‘charismatic’ extremists doing time are acting as ‘self-styled emirs, exerting a controlling and radicalising influence on the wider Muslim prison population,’ and says that Islamic extremism is manifesting itself in gang culture, violence, threats against staff and inmates, aggressive encouragement of conversions to Islam, and attempts to bring about segregation. Prison reform campaigner Cody Lachey has done time in HMP Manchester and has seen how radical views can spread behind bars. In Strangeways, I was in a cell next to prisoner who had radical views”, Cody told the Manchester Evening News. “His attitude was ‘the British are in our country, kids are dying, women are dying, innocent people are dying, we’re taking the fight to the kuffar, the non-believers.’
“If met him on the street I could continue my journey, but in prison you might be on a segregated landing, and so someone like that has got months and years to work on you - at a time when you have all this anger at the system. If you hear something that many times you start to listen and you start to believe. This is why extremists are more dangerous on the inside than they are on the outside.
“When you are in prison the problems you have got in you life are magnified by a thousand. When people spend long periods on ‘bang-up’ (locked in cells) it has a detrimental effect on mental health, and a lot of people come to prison with mental health problems anyway. Prison will bring you to your knees at one time or another.
“Extremists target the weaker members, the loners. Prisoners are very cliquey. The Mancs stick together. The Scousers stick together. You might have a couple of Scots and they will stick together. Manchester gang members will stick to their gangs, so everyone is divided except the Muslims, who stick together and form the biggest group. It’s about strength in numbers. Extremists use the environment to propagandise. They will see you on the yard and say ‘look at you, the government doesn’t give a **** about you, look at the weight dropping off you, the poor food and the tiny portions, look how you are spoke to by these screws? You’re a good man, you have got a good heart..look how lawless and dangerous this place is...come with us, we have got your back, we care about you.’ “Not everyone that is an extremist is arrested coming off a plane from Syria or on terror charges, in prison they might be a drug dealer, and they have still got these radical views that they can spread.
“Not everyone has got a support network and has money being sent in. Prison is quite a selfish place and little things like coffee and shower gel, that arm on the shoulder, mean a lot when you’re locked up 23 hours a day. If someone is looking after you will gravitate towards that person. But an extremist won’t be doing it because he gives a **** about you. He just wants to radicalise you.
“They start by giving you the Qur’an in English. They start asking you questions: “What’s your favourite bit, have you seen what it says about the unbelievers? Switch off the TV, it’s brainwashing you,’ they slowly, slowly take over.
“The damage an extremist can cause in a prison is massive. The authorities can’t stop physical contraband so how are you going to stop words and thoughts? ” The UK’s first separation unit for extremists opened at HMP Frankland in Durham in July. Separation units for generally subversive or rebellious prisoners are not unknown to the system - Parviz Khan, who is serving life for a plot to kidnap and behead a British Muslim soldier, was held in one at HMP Manchester at the height of the ‘Piranha’ gang’s activity. However, the opening of the new centre at Frankland is the first time inmates have been singled out from the general population purely on the basis that they might radicalise others to religious and political extremism. Two more of the units, which are not just for Islamists, but any extremist likely to radicalise others, are expected to open in the next few months in high security jails. Combined, the units will only hold up to 28 people. Jackie Marshall, who is on the Prison Officers Association’s National Executive Committee, said: “Prisons are closed from the outside world, but what happens in the outside world happens on the inside. The problem in the outside world has got worse, so the problem inside has got worse. Prisoners change religion for all kinds of reasons, sometimes for protection, it can be that pressure is put on them as well. You are
‘EXTREMISTS ARE MORE DANGEROUS INSIDE THAN OUT’ ‘IT’S BRAINWASHING . . . THEY SLOWLY, SLOWLY, TAKE OVER’
always going to get gangs within prison because of the environment.”
The POA, which represents staff at public and private sector prisons, welcomes the new units. However, many officer have yet to be trained in identifying radicalisation, Jackie says. “The new officers who are coming through the schools now have some training on extremism, but officers like myself, I’ve done 27 years and haven’t had any.”
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice said: “We have delivered on our plans to house the most subversive prisoners in separation centres – preventing their influence over others – and have also boosted the ability of frontline staff to challenge extremist views by providing over 7,000 staff with enhanced training to tackle this evolving threat.”