Why prisons are still failing to stop Islamist terror

Johnathan Hall QC has done the state a service. His cogent report on prison terrorism, published today, compliments and advances work I started in 2016 to alert the government to the profound problems in how we manage ideologically motivated offenders in our jails.

Hall’s report critically examines the contemporary threat of violent extremism from within the prison walls – where at the last count reside some 230 offenders convicted of terrorist offences and a greater number who are at risk of radicalisation or already radicalised. The vast majority of these offenders are motivated by Islamist extremism which explains his report’s focus.

He begins by making two stark points, obvious to those of us who have paid attention to jail jihad. First, the impact of Islamist groups in custody has been ‘under appreciated’ (I would say wilfully ignored) for years. Secondly, at the time of writing, the last four completed terrorist attacks were committed by prisoners either serving their sentence in custody or under community supervision.