Europe's prisons: Old hatchery for manufacture of new extremists

In 2022, fears have been renewed in Europe about the spread of extremism in prisons spread across the continent after they have become hotbeds for the spread of extremist ideology. The presence of a number of people affiliated with terrorist organizations such as ISIS and al-Qaeda who are serving years or life sentences made prisoners of general crimes vulnerable to receiving extremist ideas through these terrorist elements, especially after a gradual increase was noticed in the number of extremist criminals in prisons, which poses a threat to the security of society and requires special and serious attention to this problem.

The General Secretariat of Penitentiary Institutions in Spain had paid attention to the plan of ISIS after Spanish counterterrorism experts studied the terrorist organization’s dependence on prisoners with short sentences or those about to be released, because as soon as they are released from prison, they are contacted to continue working for the benefit of ISIS. The General Secretariat stressed that prisons have become one of the main sources of polarization, recruitment and extremism.

There is a trend in the West that says that non-violence is the primary goal, not extremism. That is, the effort expended is to prevent violence even while noticing the recruitment of some or the changing of their behavior and ideas due to influence by others, especially since prisons are not equipped to provide religious education, and it is very difficult to change the thoughts of prisoners. Instead, trying to persuade them not to resort to weapons in order to defend their ideas is more achievable on the ground.

Means of polarization

Extremists affiliated with Islamist organizations know how to attract criminal prisoners, most of whom have only a limited level of education and are usually from circles of limited income. They work to gradually introduce one of them into their social network, and then invite him to attend their religious circles until he becomes completely convinced of the jihadist ideology, and as soon as he is released from prison, the takfirist ideas he received will be implemented on the ground.

In turn, Elias Zerhouni, an imam in Brussels who runs community programs that seek to counter extremist ideology, said, “Prisons make an effort to isolate extremists, but they do not really address the problem. We need experts in ideology and others in psychology. The costs will be high, but it is nothing compared to what we will deal with when these people are released from prisons.”

“Juvenile detainees who spent time in Iraq or Syria are released to schools and neighborhoods and among their peers while they are still loyal to the cause of the radical militants. They are more likely to be admired rather than blamed when they go out, as they are seen as heroes because they used weapons.”

It is noteworthy that France appointed batches of religious guides to convince Islamist militants in its prisons of moderate Islam, while in Germany the authorities are keen to closely monitor Muslim prisoners and isolate the extremists from the rest of the prisoners. But observers question the feasibility of these policies, as it is not possible to know if a prisoner was attracted to jihadist ideology or not except after he left and committed terrorist acts.