European prisons confirm danger of repentant fake jihadists

And this is not a specific phenomenon: Absence of repentance and denial of guilt are common in society. jihadist espionage In Europe, despite reintegration efforts by prison authorities. Indeed, for jihadists in prison false repentance is another form of continuation and there is currently no means to confirm that a fanatical Islamist has abandoned his violent ideology.

These are two of the results that will be released in early summer after police and prison experts from across Europe attend a meeting of the RAN (Radicalization Awareness Network) on 7 and 8 July. radicalization.

European prison authorities confirming the failure of de-radicalization plans in prison deployed so far. Due to inadequate follow-up (five inmates were targeted for this type of treatment in Spain), but also, above all, because of the difficulty of detecting cheating. “We work with people. This is not an exact science, ”says Francisco José Macero, a prison officer of the Mallorca prison, a specialist in fanaticism. This expert—the delegate of the main prison association, ACAIP-UGT—is the only active Spanish member of RAN.

go out and try

In London, they know something about the suspicions that jihadist repentance creates in prisons. On February 2, 2020, in the Streatham district of Sudesh Amman, released after receiving lesser sentences for attending a deradicalization course, managed to stab two women before he was shot dead by the police.

Concern about false repentance “is also felt in France and Belgium,” Macero says. In Spain, there is an experience with terrorism propagandist Mustafa Maya, who in 2018 repented of Melilla, whom Justice has tried as the most active prisoner ever tried.

Consensus on RAN treatment of a radical must be individualized. Programs are not worth it. “Scientific individualization of treatment is necessary – says Macero – but in Spain authorities and social workers are not educated about Muslim culture or the peculiarities of Morocco or Algeria. They should seek life…”

“For a fanatic head-on cannot be approachedtelling him that what he believed all along was a mistake because he would totally go against what you told him,” says MG, a psychologist who has worked in Madrid prisons for the past 15 years. Macero from Mallorca agrees: small goals, Step by step. The first, for example, is that the radical agrees to talk to a woman”.

As a reward, the picture prison life reliefs: be able to leave the module, have access to leisure programs, interact with other inmates, maybe get some prison leave when they evolve… The ultimate goal is for the prisoner to recognize the value of human life and they don’t abhor violence rather than their beliefs.

Details to follow

There are prisons An effective tool for the detection of radicals, scavengers and proselytes: Taken from the instruction numbered 8/2014 of the General Secretariat of Penal Institutions. This is an internal handbook for February 2018, after the attacks in Catalonia, and establishes a list of details that must be observed in the prisoner: “increased physical education”, “resistance to complying with centre’s regulations”, “need for a higher personal status” “rejection of female officials and staff“…

It is the main analysis tool of Prison Control and Monitoring Groups, the units that monitor the radicalization of prisoners. They are the main instrument of state security. prevent the consolidation of prisons as jihadist brainwashing centersand other types of crimes, such as theft or drug trafficking, that Muslim prisoners behind bars fall into a web of fanaticism.

Observation is useful even if those caught do not camouflage themselves, even if they are not wearing a hangman or praying in public. “Good recruiter have your students skip the visible parts radicalization,” says Macero.

The norm obliges not only the guards of the monitoring groups, but all levels of the prison, librarians, educators, social workers, medical personnel. “But there are workers who see the details and don’t know who to turn to,” MG complains.

in Spain There is currently no sheikh uniting all the fanatical Islamists in prison.verify jail resources, but attempt to establish a prison front It failed with Operation Escribano instructed by the National Supreme Court. But in the medium term, radicalization involving school violence “is on track to become the main security issue in prisons, with mental illness and internal acts of organized crime”, Macero says.

Right now the germ is small: in a prison population of 60,000 inmates, only 250 prisoners, 89 of whom had been convicted of jihadist terrorism links; many as promoters or collaborators; none, by the way, directly as the author of the massacres: as in the attacks in Barcelona and Madrid, the murderers they are not usually taken alive.