Muslim inmates 'in alienation risk'

Chief Inspector of Prisons Anne Owers voiced concern that warders did not understand the "complexities" of the maximum security jail's 200 Islamic prisoners.

The 900-inmate jail in south east London holds a number of convicted terrorists, including some housed in a "jail within a jail".

"This group provided a challenge to staff and managers, both in relation to their own approach and behaviour, and the risk that they might influence other disaffected prisoners," said Ms Owers.

"There was clearly a concern that these minority views should not spread. But conversely there was a real danger that the alienation of Muslim prisoners in general, and the suspicion with which they perceived they were treated, would in fact feed radicalisation."

Some "excellent" work was being done by Muslim chaplains, she added. "It is important that this network is strengthened and their work is mainstreamed, so that residential staff understand better how to work positively with Muslim prisoners, as well as how to recognise and challenge extremist views."

In a survey carried out by inspectors, responses from ethnic minority prisoners were "significantly more negative" than than those from white prisoners. Muslims responded significantly more negatively to 43 out of 56 key survey questions.

Nearly two-thirds said they had felt unsafe and the same proportion claimed to have been victimised by staff. Whereas 70% of non-Muslim prisoners said they could turn for help to a member of staff, this was the case for only 40% of Muslims.

"These figures are troubling, and suggest a high degree of alienation among these prisoners, and a distrust between them and staff," said the chief inspector. "Any intervention by staff risked being interpreted by disaffected Muslims as deliberately provocative, and there were also claims of inappropriate behaviour by them towards female staff.

"However, the converse was also true: that any conversion to Islam, or any gathering of Muslim prisoners to pray or associate, could be interpreted wrongly by staff as threatening and evidence of radicalisation, with the perverse effect of alienating the great majority of practising Muslims."