DAR AL HARB - U.K.: MOSLEM PRISONERS ARE BECOMING RADICALIZED, NEW EFFORTS BY PRISON AUTHORITIES HELPING THE RADICALIZATION PROCESS

British efforts to stop Islamic extremism in jails backfire: study

LONDON (AFP) - Draconian policies aimed at preventing British prison inmates from adopting Islamic extremist views are backfiring, a researcher said Thursday.

Gabriele Marranci, a lecturer at Aberdeen University's school of divinity and religious studies who carried out the study, said the tough policies force Muslim inmates to keep to themselves in a culture of secrecy.

"In particular, the decision in high-security prisons to suspend access to certain television programmes or newspapers has produced the opposite result that the establishment desired," Marranci said.

"The lack of freedom of expression that Muslim prisoners suffer and the continuous atmosphere of suspicion surrounding them has the effect of increasing a sense of frustration and depression that a strong view of Islam can help to overcome."

Marranci, who conducted more than 170 interviews with current and former Muslim prisoners in Britain over four years, said other counter-productive measures include restricting communal praying and barring prisoners from reading the Koran during work breaks.

"My findings suggest that the efforts made by the Prison Service in Scotland, England and Wales to show that they are tackling issues of radicalism in prison are instead facilitating the formation of essentialist views of Islam," he said.

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1) British efforts to stop Islamic extremism in jails backfire: study