Danger of mixing terrorist with prison population

Guardian:

The growing number of terrorist prisoners are forging connections with the existing gangs inside Britain's high security jails to the alarm of senior Prison Service managers, according to internal Ministry of Justice documents.

They say there is "an urgent requirement" to understand the impact of the number of terrorist prisoners in high security prisons: "As it stands, there is no intervention available to us to counter terrorist behaviour or to counter the threat of radicalisation. The impact of terrorists on prison regimes in general can be particularly disruptive."

The warning will send a wave of anxiety through Whitehall as it comes more than 18 months after prison unions first publicly warned about the lack of a national strategy to deal with the rising number of terrorist prisoners.

The prison managers also disclose that the effort to gather intelligence on terrorist offenders in prison is financed by already stretched existing funds and may not be able to continue beyond April without a new injection.

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The number of prisoners convicted or on remand for terrorist-related crimes has reached 130 and is expected to increase sharply as a number of high-profile trials finish. The identification of more than 2,000 individuals whom the security services regard as suspects also gives an indication of the future challenges.

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"There are also emerging concerns about how terrorists impact on the existing gang culture within the high security estate and how terrorists may be forging connections with existing gangs."

Later it warns that the rising number of convicted and suspected terrorists sent to high security jails means "work needs to be done in order to challenge terrorist behaviour and the threat of radicalisation".

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The move by liberals to close Gitmo and move these guys to the states looks like an obvious bad idea when you see the British experience with such a scheme. We are better off with the terrorist at Gitmo where they can be watched and controlled and not permitted to recruit from the prison population.

The Independent reports that "serious attack takes place every 45 minutes in the overcrowded jails of England and Wales as prison staff struggle to cope with soaring levels of violence." Some of those on the receiving end of this violence are terrorist. The events appear to spike around the time of terrorist attacks in the UK.