Blogger Muhammad Javed questions why the Muslim prison population is disproportionately high in the UK and whether there is a long-term solution to tackling this with Muslim youth.
The haunting echo of shouting voices, the clank of keys against the metal bars, the flitting about of the guards from door to door, the roaming of the inmates’ curious mix of lifeless yet active eyes, and the constant hammering of fists against the inside of cell doors – these were the sounds and sights that greeted me as I walked through HMP Pentonville last month.
Invited by a barrister-turned-imam to attend the Jumuah prayer and the sermon that accompanies it, the aim was to gain an insight into what the situation is like in one of Britain’s oldest prisons, particularly for the experience of its Muslim population, which makes up a staggering 33% of all inmates there.
That’s just the statistic for one prison though. As of December 2015, the overall Muslim prison population was around 12,000, which is 14% of the UK’s total prison population. To add to that, at least one in five prisoners in high-security prisons – those that hold inmates charged with serious crimes such as murder, rape, and terrorism – are Muslims.
Compare those statistics to the fact that Muslims make up a mere 4.8% of Britain’s entire population, and we can see that the numbers are staggeringly disproportionate.
Reasons for disproportionate statistics
How can such an outnumbered minority contribute towards such a high prison population? Well, there are a number of possible reasons for that.
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First of all, we must put aside the amusing and pathetic accusations by Islamophobes that it is the religion itself that inherently makes Muslims dangerous, and that the majority of Muslim prisoners are guilty of terror offences: this has already been disproven in data published by the Ministry of Justice, which showed that between 2012 and 2015, only 104 Muslims (less than 1% of the total Muslim prison population) were convicted of terrorist-related offences.
The three most probable reasons are youth, poverty, and ignorance. Muslims in Britain – and in fact Muslims worldwide – are largely a young population under the age of 30, mixed with the fact that we are one of the most deprived groups in the UK.
Almost half of British Muslims are concentrated in the bottom 10% of the most deprived areas in England, and all it takes is a short walk through a local council housing estate to see the type of influence young Muslim men – boys, rather – are exposed to.
In the prevailing “roadman” culture that has overridden the youth in the UK, Muslims are being sucked into it like air through a vacuum, making us no more different from the rest of the population.
In that culture – fuelled by the toxic mixture of rap and grime music with an increasing sense of purposelessness and nihilism – knives, drugs, promiscuity, immorality, and violent crime abound.
In every corridor of the country’s colleges, universities, and educational institutions (I myself am a student), marijuana is circulated and can be purchased with the click of a finger. It adds to an already misguided and purposeless youth, and it doesn’t take a genius to know that our youth is literally the generation that will inherit this land and government.
Neglected youth
Some will put it down to a crisis in masculinity, and there is much truth in that, but the fact is that it is not completely the fault of the youth: they have been neglected by both their parents and the government.
If a vigorous, energetic, and testosterone-filled young man is left to his own devices, he can only recline peacefully at home in bed for so long before the urge to get up and do something overtakes him.
It’s then that all of his energy and potential are wasted on a petty gang war or feud.
The ones who are slightly wiser and recognise their energy will take up football or boxing, or perhaps some martial arts or sport to serve as a physical outlet, but very few have the willpower to start and maintain that regularly.
Encouragement has been tried and tested; it’s now the time for coercion.
Is there a solution?
What must be done, therefore, is to make physical exercise – in whatever reasonable form – mandatory and compulsory for young men, for it is absolutely necessary that we have an outlet.
An ideal situation would be in the form of mandatory military service, where the youth are transferred to a certain location to be trained in military exercises for a certain period of time.
However, seeing as this is the Muslim community that is being discussed and not a nationwide issue, the practical solution is a more watered-down version of that where they can be physically trained in the same style as cadets or scouts.
This would serve the purposes of giving the male Muslim youth a physical outlet and of giving them a purpose and direction, even inspiring their future directions. Both would solve the Muslim prison crisis, as well as ensuring they become model and influential citizens.
If a Muslim-led program like that cannot be set up, then there is at least one more method to be tried: conducting tours of the Muslim youth around prisons throughout the country. That’s exactly what I experienced, and I can confidently say that if I was intending to commit a crime or was about to be dragged into a gang feud, I would immediately distance myself from any of that trouble and rethink my actions.
Community leaders and Imams should be encouraged to take their Quran class pupils on prison tours, even those who are just entering their teens. I remember the amusement and disbelief in my host’s voice when, after being told that the minimum age of being allowed to visit a prison in the UK is now 18, he exclaimed that even those who are 14 and younger have already started to take drugs, hang with the wrong crowd, and are already on the path towards a life of crime and regret.
It is clear that the increasing numbers of Muslim prisoners are becoming a stain on Britain’s Muslim community, and is helping Islamophobes portray Islam and its followers as dangerous and averse to the law of the land – and their evidence is all in the statistics. The issue is being propagated as religious rather than the social matter that it is, and is being strengthened by recent claims that “prisons within prisons” are being set up to segregate Muslim prisoners and prevent rising radicalisation within the prisons.
Our nationwide Muslim community must organise the mentioned activities and programs, and take measures to implement them for the benefit of both Muslims and Britain.
Muhammad Javed is a university politics student, who is an aspiring journalist focusing on Middle Eastern and international political affairs.
