September 19, 2006 in Nation/World

U.S. prisons are hotbed for terrorism, study says

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WASHINGTON – U.S. prisons are becoming major breeding grounds for Islamic terrorists, but state and local authorities are too cash-strapped to prevent or track recruiting, a new report concludes.

The report, to be released today, found there aren’t enough legitimately trained Muslim religious leaders to counsel an estimated 9,000 U.S. prison inmates who want Islamic services. That allows Islamist extremists to target their vulnerable prison-mates with distorted versions of the Quran and other Muslim readings that urge radicalization and violence.

“Radicalized prisoners are a potential pool of recruits by terrorist groups,” concludes the joint study by George Washington University and the University of Virginia. “The U.S., with its large prison population, is at risk of facing the sort of homegrown terrorism currently plaguing other countries.”

Additionally, state and local prison officials struggle to track radical behavior changes in inmates or religious counselors. And staff and funding shortages limit preventative programs, the report found, noting that California officials “report that every investigation into radical groups in their prisons uncovers new leads, but they simply do not have enough investigators to follow every case of radicalization.”

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