One year after the Fishmongers’ Hall attack, a rethink is needed on terrorist prisoners

Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. The attacks followed alarm over plots mounted by former terrorist prisoners and revelations that offenders have been “covering up their true beliefs” in deradicalisation meetings. Whistleblowers have long warned that low-level terror offenders can become more dangerous inside prison, with one officer telling The Independent: “I don’t see any end to the attacks whatsoever, those ones that come in with an extremist view leave with a stronger one.” The Parole Board sounded a warning in January 2018, during a consultation on terror sentences, saying it had “concerns that increasing the penalties for less serious offenders will result in them becoming more likely to commit terrorist acts when they are released”. “These programmes are more likely to be successful in the community than in prison, where the influence of extremist inmates is likely to be stronger.” At the time, parliament’s Justice Committee said it had reason to believe that deradicalisation inside prisons was “absent or inadequate” and reminded the government of its obligation to consider rehabilitation as well as punishment. Ian Acheson, a former prison governor who carried out the government’s 2016 review of Islamist extremism in jails, called them “incubators of extremism” this week.