Majority of jailed terrorists 'not rehabilitating'

110 of the Britain's 150 terrorist offenders are refusing to be rehabilitated.

16:43 02 January 2014

The majority of convicted terrorists are not responding to rehabilitation efforts in British prisons, it has been revealed.

Sky News reported that nearly three quarters of those imprisoned for Islamist terror crimes are not showing any signs of repenting, leading to strong concerns about what will happen once they are released.

The government has a counter-terrorist division named Contest which is used to guide extremists into switching to non-violent methods.

Dr Usama Hasan, senior researcher in Islamic studies at the counter-extremist think tank, the Quilliam Foundation, was quoted by Sky News.

He said: "It shows the extent of the challenge that, 12 years after the 9/11 attacks in the US, you've still got the majority of these people not wanting to deal with any examination or discussion of their hardline ideas."

"If you look at their background and ideology, it is hardline jihadists' ideology which is the same as that of al Qaeda.

"It is very fanatical, it's narrow minded, it's entrenched. It is absolutely certain that it is the correct world view and anybody who opposes it is its enemy and is the enemy of God.

"It's very difficult to change that view amongst such individuals."

Out of the 150 convicted for terrorism in recent years, just 40 have tried to the government scheme, but these are offenders from lower down in the food chain.

Raffaello Pantucci, senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said: "I think individuals who have pursued a path of radical extremist ideas are very difficult to persuade away from those ideas.

"I think trying to persuade them when they're within the context of a prison is understandably even harder.

"It poses a difficulty for the security services because you are seeing a lot of people coming back out of prison who don't necessarily seem to have rejected the beliefs that they had before.

"These are individuals that the security services have to watch out for and they need to be aware of these people and watching someone requires a substantial amount of resources."