Due to a host of factors related to the generalized psychologies of many inmates; the fact that political dissidents, religious rebels, and militant revolutionaries are housed with equally violence-prone criminals; and the often particularly severe prison environments, prisons continue to serve as hothouses and incubators of radicalization for militant groups.
As the AP article notes, recent high profile prison riots and breakouts among militant Islamist prisoners in Jordan , Afghanistan , and Yemen have underscored the potential for prisons to become not only a recruiting ground for Islamist militant groups, but also, as the article notes, ?schools? where radical groups or networks might develop and/or actually strategize and plan militant activities. That radical groups might coalesce, organize, and educate themselves in prison is neither a new phenomenon, nor unique to Islamist radicals (November 9, 2005 WAR Report, September 7, 2005 WAR Report, and January 5, 2005 WAR Report). As Tim Pat Coogan notes in his book, The Troubles: Ireland?s Ordeal 1966-1996 and the Search for Peace, ?The IRA regards jail either as another battlefield or as ?the Republican university? wherein one may either fight on or obtain a higher education, not all of it of an academic nature.?
As the August 24 WAR Report describes, prisons represent a particularly fertile breeding ground for radical groups due to the intense interaction of radical ideologues and/or leaders with a significant segment of prison populations comprised of individuals susceptible to the radical group lifestyle and calling. As the WAR Report noted, ?many of the generalized personal psychologies, motivations, and group dynamics common to radical and militant groups are already present to various degrees?in some cases pronounced extremes?within a prison population.? Please review the August 24 WAR Report for these psychologies and social factors and dynamics. And, as the WAR Report concludes, ?within this prison environment of psychologies and motivations, militant Islamist extremism (among other moderate or extremist religions or political groupings) would offer an attractive ideology and life course, promising redemption, salvation, and/or revenge against perceived enemies and a sense of identity and purpose within the group.?
In addition to representing a venue for radicalization, group formation, and education for militant groups, prisons may also represent an illuminating arena in which counterterrorism agencies may be able to observe and study the contours and dynamics of radicalization. Discerning the mechanisms and rationales that prove most potent in radicalization and recruitment within prisons may prove advantageous for counterterrorism agencies that incorporate these insights into counterterrorism intelligence and warning frameworks that seek to identify potential indicators of militant Islamist radicalization and group formation activities outside prisons. Further, the phenomenon of radical group formation within prisons highlights the threat to the US homeland posed by ?homegrown? cells or groups emerging from the domestic prison environment.
