Prisons 'breed Islam extremists' By GRAEME WILSON Deputy Political Editor BRITAIN'S jails risk becoming breeding grounds for Islamic extremists after Muslim lag numbers doubled in ten years, prison officers warned yesterday. Figures obtained by The Sun show there are 8,000 Muslims in our jails - up from just 3,700 in 1997. And the number of Muslim inmates - from both Britain and abroad - is growing FOUR TIMES faster than the prison population as a whole. Warders yesterday warned that impressionable young Muslim prisoners are left vulnerable to brainwashing by Islamic extremists. Brian Caton, general secretary of the Prison Officers' Association, said his members were struggling to cope. He said: "We have already seen how shoe-bomber Richard Reid was converted and radicalised in prison. We don't want that being repeated. We have a massive lack of language skills. Very few officers can speak Urdu or Arabic, which means prisoners could be doing or saying anything." Growing numbers of prisoners are converting to Islam while serving their sentences. Staggering The increasing prison population piles more pressure on jails trying to cope with more than 11,000 foreign inmates. Britain's prison population has grown by 30 per cent in the last ten years - from 62,000 to more than 81,000. But the number of Muslim lags has soared by a staggering 120 per cent. The Ministry of Justice insists it is taking action to cope with soaring numbers. A spokeswoman said: "The Prison Service is developing its response to the challenges posed by radicalised prisoners, including providing guidance for governors, to deal effectively with behav-iour that poses a threat." The Home Office has warned the number of terrorists in jails will soar from 131 to 1,600 over the next decade - a 12-fold increase. Shadow justice secretary Nick Herbert said: "Officers are right to warn about the challenge posed by a large number of Muslim inmates." <http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article444746.ece> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
