AS an anthropologist, I have spent four years researching how being behind bars has impacted on prisoners' Muslim identity and their experience of Islam in Scotland, England and Wales.
I have met, spent time with, and interviewed 170 current and former Muslim prisoners and their families. There are differences between Scotland and the rest of the UK. Muslim prisoners in Scotland are 2% of the total while the overall Muslim population is only 0.8%. The two prison services are also different. The English and Welsh prison service has a Muslim advisor and appointed Muslim chaplains.
Nearly three years after submitting my first report to the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) and the Scottish government, there is still no Muslim adviser to the SPS and no appointed imams. I appreciate the recent efforts of the SPS to facilitate Muslim prisoners in practising their religion; however, my findings suggest that a Muslim adviser and professionally trained chaplains are extremely important in preventing extremism.
But is it really a matter of quantity? In Scotland, Muslim prisoners lack professional religious advising and are left isolated in the process of rediscovering Islam. Prison is an environment that facilitates strong views.
This leads to my second important finding. The mass media have overemphasised, and politicians over estimated, the danger of extremism within prison and the danger of extremists recruiting within prison. They overlook the real problem: the process of reintegration within society.
Often, former Muslim prisoners are rejected by their own families and the mainstream Muslim community, which fears attracting further mass media attention. Former Muslim prisoners often remain isolated, and there are single members of dissembled militant organisations who actively, but without disclosing their previous affiliations, try to "talent scout" the most vulnerable. The majority rejects the radical message; a minority remains fascinated by it.
I have never been asked by the government or the Scottish parliament what I have found during my research and which solutions we can derive from it. Of that 2% of Muslim prisoners, you need only one alienated former prisoner to endanger our lives. If politicians wish to protect the public, they need to provide a clear support to these, often young, former Muslim prisoners. Terrorism certainly does not stop at Hadrian's Wall.
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