The number of people convicted of terror-related offences in the UK has shot up by 75 per cent in just three years, the government has said, amid concerns about radicalisation behind bars.
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) published the shocking statistic in a statement explaining actions taken to tackle extremism in jails, as well as revealing an estimated 700 inmates have helped to spread radical view among prisoners.
The measures include the opening of a second “separation centre” designed “to curtail the influence of the most disruptive prisoners”. The first was opened last July and a third will be introduced by the end of the year.
The move follows a 2015 report by the Quilliam Foundation, which called for imprisoned Islamic extremists to have their own segregated wings so they could not spread their ideology.
The MoJ said that with the 700 inmates considered a “risk due to their extremist views, and foreign fighters returning from Syria and Iraq hardened and dangerous, the Government is meeting the challenge of confronting and countering the spread of poisonous ideology within prisons”.
Adding: “We have significantly increased our resources to tackle extremism in prisons, appointing 100 counter-terrorism specialists and training up more than 13,000 frontline staff to ensure they can identify, report and tackle extremist behaviour in all its forms.”
Tory Justice Secretary David Gauke said the increasing number of people jailed for terror-related offences “means we need to do more than ever before to confront and counter the threat, including the spread of all forms of poisonous ideology within prisons – and we are meeting that challenge”.
In 2016, it was reported that one in five prisoners in the UK’s top security jails is now Muslim, a rise of 23 per cent from just five years before. In total, a 20 per cent increase in the jail population in Britain has been accompanied by a massive rise in Muslim inmates – up 122 per cent over 13 years.
And, back in 2015, a report by UK prison’s Independent Monitoring Board revealed the UK had its first Muslim-majority prison where non-Muslim inmates were being pressured to convert to an “Islamic protection racket”.