Justice Minister: UK Prison System ‘Preparing for Influx of Returning Jihadis’, Must Instill ‘British Values’

Revealing “a lot of work is being done” by authorities to prepare for an expected influx of jihadis from the Middle East, Britain’s Justice Secretary said the prison system needs an incentive system that rewards “understand[ing of] society’s values”.

“There is a likelihood that we are going to see people returning from the Middle East in the months ahead and many of them are going to become our problem within the prison system,” David Gauke told the Evening Standard.

“We need to make sure that there’s the proper approach to them,” he said, asserting that there is a “need to ensure that there are incentives within the prison system for those that do the right thing” and who are “engaging and facing up to what they have done”.

He added: “We [need to] have a prison system that encourages that and places significant demands on people in these circumstances to understand society’s values and norms and what we are about as a country. We could be talking carrots or we could be talking sticks.”

Mr. Gauke declined to name a figure on how many jihadis he expected to return, but the government previously disclosed that around 15 per cent of the more than 850 UK-linked individuals who went to fight in Syria are presumed dead, and “just under half” are believed to have returned to Britain.

As Breitbart London reported, the government admitted last month that “a significant portion” of Islamic State fighters in Britain are at large and unpunished, having been assessed by authorities as “no longer of national security concern”.

Contrasting how Theresa May’s government treats jihadis returning from combat in the Middle East and the reception it gives to conservative journalists, three of whom were locked up and banned from the UK in the last week, James Delingpole commented that Britain “says ‘yes’ to jihadis, ‘no’ to free speech”.

Many on social media have also drawn attention to the difference in treatment, including Breitbart London Editor in Chief Raheem Kassam, who said “it bears remembering” that “Sadiq Khan can’t even keep a straight face about failing to find them and deport them”, alongside a clip of the London Mayor.