A British study has suggested that Western prisons can root out militant Islamismism among the prison inmates by adopting more imaginative approaches to prisoners used in parts of the Middle East and Asia.
Some of the measures that were proposed in the study of prisons in fifteen countries included the provision of helping prisoners cultivate non-extremist social networks and religious advice.
From in.news.yahoo.com:
Britain’s chief prison inspector said last month the treatment of Muslim inmates by prison staff as potentially dangerous militants risked driving them into the hands of radical groups.
Prisons occupy a central place in the history of militant Islamist groups such as al Qaeda which see them as valued centres of learning, recruitment and indoctrination.
Creative programmes can turn the tide, argues the study of prison militants in Afghanistan, Algeria, Britain, Egypt, France, Indonesia, Israel, Netherlands, Pakistan, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, the United States and Yemen.
For example in Singapore, alleged terrorists are systematically re-educated in prison, said the report by London’s International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR).
A team of trained religious advisers helps them go through the Koran, showing how critical passages need to be read in context, and how extremist notions about violence are often based on misreadings and misinterpretations, the report says.
Peter Neumann, study author and director of ICSR based at London University’s King’s College, said that prisons can be a place for reform and radicalization.
