Call to cage terrorists in separate jail areas
BRITAIN’S most dangerous terrorists must be routinely separated from other criminals behind bars, an expert on extremism warned.
Prison officers backed calls for fanatics to be held in specialist “separation” units to prevent them brainwashing other inmates.
The calls come after a second convicted terrorist launched an attack after being released from jail – prompting fresh fears about extremism in prisons.
Sudesh Amman stole a knife and stabbed two people while wearing a fake suicide vest in Streatham last Sunday.
And Usman Khan killed two people at a prisoner rehabilitation
event in London Bridge in November while on licence.
Extremists exploit a jail system “awash with drugs, record breaking levels of violence, despair and self-harm” and target people without hope, according to former prison governor Ian Acheson.
In response to the growing crisis of radicalisation behind bars, ministers opened the first separation centre in HMP Frankland in 2017.
But similar ones in HMP Full Sutton and HMP Woodhill have been “mothballed”, according to the Prison Officers’ Association, and remain empty.
The association told the Daily Express these units must be used more – a claim backed by counter-extremism experts.
David Toube, of London-based think-tank the Quilliam Foundation, said: “Too few of these units are currently in operation.
“They should be the rule for the most serious terrorist prisoners, not the exception.
“They are fantastic in that you can take these people away from the general population and stop them from radicalising others and punishing other Muslim prisoners through sharia trials inside jails.
“But on the other hand, you create a unit with some of the worst offenders all together. It could include someone who has beheaded someone with someone who has downloaded beheading videos. It would effectively create a university of extremism.
“On balance, you have got to keep these people away from the rest of the population. It needs a well thought-through plan.”
Home Office figures show there are 224 terrorists in prison in Great Britain, with most thought to have Islamist-extremist views.
As many as 50 terrorists could be freed this year, figures suggest.
Steve Gillan, general secretary of the Prison Officers’ Association, said: “This is incredibly frustrating. If we want to protect the public we should be using the resources that the Government announced in a blaze of glory.
“Yet there are only every two or three prisoners in these units at a time. It is just not good enough.
“I just don’t understand why the prison service does not seem keen on using these separation centres. I think it is down to cost.”
A Ministry of Justice report reveals the first centre opened in June 2017 in HMP Frankland, Co Durham. But similar units at Full
Sutton, near York, and Woodhill, Bucks, are empty, according to the Prison Officers’ Association.
Each wing has the capacity to hold eight men. But an MoJ study revealed each centre only “accommodated between three and six men at any one time”.
The report also highlighted how Britain’s worst terrorists were refusing to deradicalise.
It said: “The main issue was the fact that the men on the centres had begun, over time, to disengage from many activities on the centres, especially progression and rehabilitation work.” Officials pointed towards “low numbers of referrals”, suggesting that prison staff were struggling to spot radicalisation among inmates.
The MoJ said: “We take the threat posed by terrorist offenders very seriously which is why we designed separation centres to hold the most subversive extremist prisoners, preventing them from spreading malicious ideology.
“Separation centres are just one way in which we manage them, and we are reviewing how they are used in light of recent events.”