Homegrown Terror Suspects Turned Toward Radicalism in U.S. Prisons

FOX News ^ | May 22, 2009 | By Joseph Abrams

[Jim Robinson]

The four men charged with plotting to blow up two New York synagogues and shoot down military planes converted to Islam while behind bars, a place terror experts say is a cauldron for Islamic radicalism.

James Cromitie, David Williams, Onta Williams and Laguerre Payen were said by friends and family to have become Muslims while in prison, where they began on a path toward terrorist violence that law enforcement officials say is part of a troubling trend in America.

"Prisons can play a critical role in both triggering and reinforcing the radicalization process," read a landmark 2007 report from the New York Police Department, which warned of prisons as a "radicalizing cauldron."

"The prison's isolated environment, ability to create a 'captive audience' atmosphere, its absence of day-to-day distractions, and its large population of disaffected young men, makes it an excellent breeding ground for radicalization."

Many inmates convert to Islam while incarcerated, but security experts have signaled an emerging threat from those who embrace "Prison Islam," which they say is a twisted version of the religion.

Prison Islam is "the convergence of prison culture and violence into religious practice," said Frank Cilluffo, director of the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University. Often lacking an imam or other religious leader to instruct them, inmates will distort Islam for themselves to embrace prison values like violence and gang loyalty.

And while religious conversion is rehabilitative for the vast majority of inmates, Cilluffo said, Prison Islam can lead them down a much more dangerous path. Charismatic leaders can recruit prisoners to their cause and further swell the ranks of the radicals.

Between 6 and 10 percent of the U.S. prison population practices some form of Islam...

[ballplayer]

So lets bring the Learned Professors from Guantanamo to our Prisons here in The US to preside over Classes and turn out Highly educated Jihadists

[trooprally]

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