UK plans specialist prison units for extremists

Britain's most dangerous extremists will be locked up in specialist isolated high-security units within prisons to prevent them from radicalising other inmates, authorities said today, days after the conviction of well known radical Islamic preacher Anjem Choudary.
The plan is part of a broader strategy to tackle radicalisation in British prisons to be launched next week by UK justice secretary Liz Truss under which inmates will receive targeted treatment to deal with their dangerous views.
She said: "The rise of Islamist extremism poses an existential threat to our society. I am committed to confronting and countering the spread of this poisonous ideology behind bars.

"Preventing the most dangerous extremists from radicalising other prisoners is essential to the safe running of our prisons and fundamental to public protection."
The new units will be built inside some of the UK's highest security jails and they will only accommodate the most extreme inmates who promote terror and violence, according to 'The Sunday Telegraph'.
Although the units will be sealed off from the main prison, extremists will not be isolated from each other.

Measures will be put in place to manage the inmates' ability to plot together, a source told the newspaper, after concerns were raised that the units could help extremists form bigger networks within the UK.

The move comes soon after the conviction of one of the UK's most extremist preachers Anjem Choudary.
He is expected to be jailed for 10 years after being found guilty of pledging allegiance to Islamic State (ISIS) at a sentencing hearing scheduled for September.
As many as five of his associates have since been placed under draconian anti-terror controls in a new crackdown on domestic extremism.
A summary of a report into prison extremism by Ian Acheson, a former UK Home Office official, will be published tomorrow with details of specialist units to separate extremists from other inmates.
Of the12,300 Muslims in British prisons,131 are convicted terrorists,but Acheson will warn that they make up a hardcore who could be influencing impressionable and potentially violent convicts.

Currently, Muslimsmakeup about 12 per cent of the prison population, althoughare only about 5 per cent of the overall UK population.