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UK Launches ‘Jihadi Jail’ To Keep Inmates From Getting Radicalized

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Jacob Bojesson Foreign Correspondent
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Convicted terrorists in the United Kingdom will be placed in a special “jihadi jail” to decrease the risk of radicalization among other inmates.

The Frankland prison in County Durham will be the pilot “prison within a prison” designated for extremists. The “most subversive extremist prisoners” will be kept away from the general population after a recent spike in radicalization within prisons.

An inmate at the maximum security Belmarsh prison in London described how terrorist controlled entire sections of the facility in an interview with the Evening Standard.

“All around I witnessed people being radicalized,” the former inmate said. “Instantly you could see the change … they would call each other ‘Akhi’ [brother] and they became hyper-aggressive toward anybody not into radical Islam.”

Belmarsh housed 51 inmates convicted of terror-related crimes in 2006. The number had grown to at least 80 a decade later.

Some people warn that jihadi prison blocks could have the wrong effect and instead give terrorists higher status.

“We have vast experience of that in Northern Ireland and it didn’t work there. In fact, it made the situation worse,” Steve Gillan, general secretary of the Prison Officers Association, told The Times. “We remain neutral and we will watch to see what impact it will have. The security of our members will be paramount at all sites.”

Khalid Masood, the man behind the terror attack in London March 22, experienced “an abrupt religious conversion” during his incarceration Lowes prison.

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