*** CANADA is the only one not on the list - how embrassing. MS ***
FROM: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/100628/world/international_us_security_radicalisation
LONDON (Reuters) - Western prisons could root out militant Islamism among inmates by adopting the more imaginative approaches to prisoners used in parts of the Middle East and Asia, a British study suggests.
The provision of religious advice and helping prisoners cultivate non-extremist social networks are among measures proposed in the study of prisons in 15 countries.
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 centers of learning, recruitment and indoctrination.
Creative programs 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 Center 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.
Prisons can be "a place for reform as well as radicalization," Peter Neumann, study author and director of ICSR based at London University's King's College, told Reuters.
"Prisons can play a positive role in tackling problems of radicalization and terrorism in society as a whole."
"SECURITY FIRST" APPROACH
Most Western prison systems practiced a "security first" approach with radicalized inmates, Neumann said, arguing this amounted to "locking people away and making sure they don't cause any trouble." Opportunities for reform were missed.
In Saudi Arabia, officials spend heavily to reform and re-integrate former militants to try to ensure they can look forward to a meaningful and productive life after leaving prison, the report says. In some cases, this process has included buying them houses and cars, and even finding them wives.
"None of the de-radicalization programs in the Middle East and Southeast Asia is perfect," said Neumann.
"But they should serve as an inspiration for people in the West to think more creatively about what positive things could be done with radicals and terrorists in the state's custody."
Neumann said this approach would not work everywhere, because de-radicalization depended on a conducive environment.
Releasing people into hostile communities with no further supervision would not work because all good de-radicalization programs were based on follow-up and after-care, which in case of Afghanistan for example was difficult, he said.
The study's proposed measures include:
-- A mix of education, typically combining ideological and/or religious re-education with vocational training.
-- Appointing credible interlocutors, who can relate to prisoners' personal and psychological needs.
-- Sophisticated methods for locking prisoners into multiple commitments and obligations toward family and community.
Showing posts with label prison radicalization. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prison radicalization. Show all posts
Monday, June 28, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
EXREMISM IN PRISON - DO WE HAVE A PLAN?
*** Another report I'm eagerly awaiting. We talk for years and years about the theory of this but little effort is made in actually DOING something about it. It frustrates me knowing that we could be getting it with it right this moment - but that some would rather wait until it becomes a problem and then respond. Ah the reactionaries! predictable and susceptible to surprise. THINK. MS ***
FROM: http://icsr.info/project/de-radicalisation-and-disengagement-in-prisons---lessons-from-15-countries
De-radicalisation and Disengagement in Prisons - Lessons from 15 Countries
Aim: to compare and evaluate government policies on terrorist and extremist prisoners as well as the various programmes and initiatives aimed at "de-programming" and re-habilitation.
Prisons are increasingly seen as a 'place of vulnerability' in which radicalisation and recruitment are taking place. The development has gone largely unnoticed, but - with growing numbers of violent extremists awaiting trial or serving their sentences - the problem is unlikely to go away.
Some countries have long struggled with the issue. They have developed innovative and apparently successful programmes through which radical prisoners are de-radicalised and rehabilitated. Other countries - mostly those in Western Europe and North America - are just about to begin to tackle the problem.
The ICSR study will compare and evaluate government policies on terrorist and extremist prisoners as well as the various programmes and initiatives that have been aimed at 'de-programming' and rehabilitating them.
The project will be launched in June 2009 and is expected to conclude in early 2010. It is carried out in partnership with START/University of Maryland, and will be funded by the UK Home Office, as well as the Dutch and Australian Governments.
FROM: http://icsr.info/project/de-radicalisation-and-disengagement-in-prisons---lessons-from-15-countries
De-radicalisation and Disengagement in Prisons - Lessons from 15 Countries
Aim: to compare and evaluate government policies on terrorist and extremist prisoners as well as the various programmes and initiatives aimed at "de-programming" and re-habilitation.
Prisons are increasingly seen as a 'place of vulnerability' in which radicalisation and recruitment are taking place. The development has gone largely unnoticed, but - with growing numbers of violent extremists awaiting trial or serving their sentences - the problem is unlikely to go away.
Some countries have long struggled with the issue. They have developed innovative and apparently successful programmes through which radical prisoners are de-radicalised and rehabilitated. Other countries - mostly those in Western Europe and North America - are just about to begin to tackle the problem.
The ICSR study will compare and evaluate government policies on terrorist and extremist prisoners as well as the various programmes and initiatives that have been aimed at 'de-programming' and rehabilitating them.
The project will be launched in June 2009 and is expected to conclude in early 2010. It is carried out in partnership with START/University of Maryland, and will be funded by the UK Home Office, as well as the Dutch and Australian Governments.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
RADICALIZATION IN PRISON : CONVERTS OFF TO YEMEN ?
FROM: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/world/middleeast/20terror.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
WASHINGTON — Some American former convicts who converted to Islam in prison have moved to Yemen and a few may have joined extremist groups there, according to a new Senate report.
The report, from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says that as many as 36 American Muslims who were prisoners have moved to Yemen in recent months, ostensibly to study Arabic, and that several of them have “dropped off the radar” and may have connected to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
The report warns that Americans recruited in Yemen or Somalia may pose a particular threat, since they can operate freely inside the United States.
American intelligence and counterterrorism officials, though, said they thought the report’s claim about former prisoners was exaggerated. A law enforcement official confirmed that some of them had traveled to Yemen — perhaps one or two dozen over the past several years — intending to study Arabic or Islam. The official said the former convicts did not appear to be part of any organized recruitment effort, however, and few are known to have connections with extremists.
Yemen has come under increased scrutiny from American counterterrorism agencies since November, after it emerged that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex., had exchanged e-mail messages with Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Yemeni-American cleric in hiding in Yemen. The focus intensified after the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner on Dec. 25 by a Nigerian man who allegedly was trained and supplied with explosives in Yemen.
The Senate report, written by the committee’s Democratic staff, said the government was “on heightened alert because of the potential threat from extremists carrying American passports and the related challenges involved in detecting and stopping homegrown operatives.”
With the United States putting Al Qaeda under intense pressure in Pakistan, some fighters have moved to join militant groups in Yemen and Somalia, as well as in North Africa and Southeast Asia, the report said. “These groups may have only an informal connection with Al Qaeda’s leadership in Pakistan, but they often share common goals,” Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the committee’s Democratic chairman, wrote in a letter accompanying the report.
The report notes that members of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, appeared at an antigovernment rally in southern Yemen last month. In video later shown on Al Jazeera television, a militant told the crowd that the group’s war was with the United States, not the Yemeni Army.
In addition to the American former prisoners in Yemen, the report said there were about 10 other Americans not of Yemeni ancestry who have also moved there, married Yemeni women and adopted a radical form of Islam. None in that group, however, appear to have sought terrorist training, the report said.
In nearby Somalia, the Senate report recounted, news reports told of Somali-Americans traveling to join a militant group, the Shabab. It also described Americans caught entering Somalia from Djibouti.
An immigration official in Djibouti said that he had recently turned away two Somali-Americans trying to cross into Somalia, because he thought they might be trying to link up with the Shabab. Two others were arrested and prosecuted in Djibouti for entering illegally.
The possibility that American prisons could become an incubator for radical Islam has long been raised by experts on terrorism, and a few Muslim prison chaplains in United States prisons have been accused of having extremist views. To date, only a handful of alleged terrorist plots, none of them successful, have involved American Muslims who are former prisoners.
Three American Muslims were convicted for a 2005 plot to attack Jewish institutions and military bases around Los Angeles that was said to have been concocted inside New Folsom Prison, near Sacramento. Michael Finton, who converted to Islam while imprisoned in Illinois from 1999 to 2005, was charged last year with trying to blow up the federal courthouse in Springfield, Ill.
And four former New York state prisoners, at least two of whom converted to Islam in prison, were accused last year of plotting to attack synagogues in the Bronx and shoot down military planes.
A. J. Sabree, a corrections official in Georgia and a Muslim, who worked for years as a prison chaplain, said he had never heard of Muslim former prisoners moving to Yemen. Erik Kriss, a spokesman for the New York State prison system, which employs about 40 imams to counsel inmates, said officials there were not aware of the phenomenon.
Mr. Kriss cautioned against equating conversion in prison to Islam, which is relatively common, to radicalization.
“We do not have any evidence of anything resembling widespread terrorist-inspired radicalization or recruiting,” he said. “But we recognize the potential and therefore remain vigilant in guarding against it.”
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.
WASHINGTON — Some American former convicts who converted to Islam in prison have moved to Yemen and a few may have joined extremist groups there, according to a new Senate report.
The report, from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says that as many as 36 American Muslims who were prisoners have moved to Yemen in recent months, ostensibly to study Arabic, and that several of them have “dropped off the radar” and may have connected to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
The report warns that Americans recruited in Yemen or Somalia may pose a particular threat, since they can operate freely inside the United States.
American intelligence and counterterrorism officials, though, said they thought the report’s claim about former prisoners was exaggerated. A law enforcement official confirmed that some of them had traveled to Yemen — perhaps one or two dozen over the past several years — intending to study Arabic or Islam. The official said the former convicts did not appear to be part of any organized recruitment effort, however, and few are known to have connections with extremists.
Yemen has come under increased scrutiny from American counterterrorism agencies since November, after it emerged that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex., had exchanged e-mail messages with Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Yemeni-American cleric in hiding in Yemen. The focus intensified after the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner on Dec. 25 by a Nigerian man who allegedly was trained and supplied with explosives in Yemen.
The Senate report, written by the committee’s Democratic staff, said the government was “on heightened alert because of the potential threat from extremists carrying American passports and the related challenges involved in detecting and stopping homegrown operatives.”
With the United States putting Al Qaeda under intense pressure in Pakistan, some fighters have moved to join militant groups in Yemen and Somalia, as well as in North Africa and Southeast Asia, the report said. “These groups may have only an informal connection with Al Qaeda’s leadership in Pakistan, but they often share common goals,” Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the committee’s Democratic chairman, wrote in a letter accompanying the report.
The report notes that members of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, appeared at an antigovernment rally in southern Yemen last month. In video later shown on Al Jazeera television, a militant told the crowd that the group’s war was with the United States, not the Yemeni Army.
In addition to the American former prisoners in Yemen, the report said there were about 10 other Americans not of Yemeni ancestry who have also moved there, married Yemeni women and adopted a radical form of Islam. None in that group, however, appear to have sought terrorist training, the report said.
In nearby Somalia, the Senate report recounted, news reports told of Somali-Americans traveling to join a militant group, the Shabab. It also described Americans caught entering Somalia from Djibouti.
An immigration official in Djibouti said that he had recently turned away two Somali-Americans trying to cross into Somalia, because he thought they might be trying to link up with the Shabab. Two others were arrested and prosecuted in Djibouti for entering illegally.
The possibility that American prisons could become an incubator for radical Islam has long been raised by experts on terrorism, and a few Muslim prison chaplains in United States prisons have been accused of having extremist views. To date, only a handful of alleged terrorist plots, none of them successful, have involved American Muslims who are former prisoners.
Three American Muslims were convicted for a 2005 plot to attack Jewish institutions and military bases around Los Angeles that was said to have been concocted inside New Folsom Prison, near Sacramento. Michael Finton, who converted to Islam while imprisoned in Illinois from 1999 to 2005, was charged last year with trying to blow up the federal courthouse in Springfield, Ill.
And four former New York state prisoners, at least two of whom converted to Islam in prison, were accused last year of plotting to attack synagogues in the Bronx and shoot down military planes.
A. J. Sabree, a corrections official in Georgia and a Muslim, who worked for years as a prison chaplain, said he had never heard of Muslim former prisoners moving to Yemen. Erik Kriss, a spokesman for the New York State prison system, which employs about 40 imams to counsel inmates, said officials there were not aware of the phenomenon.
Mr. Kriss cautioned against equating conversion in prison to Islam, which is relatively common, to radicalization.
“We do not have any evidence of anything resembling widespread terrorist-inspired radicalization or recruiting,” he said. “But we recognize the potential and therefore remain vigilant in guarding against it.”
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.
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