Extremism in prisons

The Howard League for Penal Reform has responded to the government’s plans for measures to tackle extremism in prisons.

Andrew Neilson, Director of Campaigns at the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “The devil will be in the detail but the hope will be that for a few prisoners this approach steers a middle way between the current policy of dispersal and the dangers of concentrating radicalised prisoners together in one institution.

“If the fear is that prisons may breed extremism, however, then the government needs to do something about our overcrowded and violent prisons. It is the extreme conditions of the prisons themselves which pose the biggest threat to public safety.”