How one in five inmates in maximum security prisons is Muslim

ONE in five prisoners in Britain’s top-security jails are Muslims, figures show.

The eight Category A jails contain 5,885 highly dangerous lags and 1,229 — 20.8 per cent — say they follow the Islamic faith. That is up from a total of 999 just five years ago, a jump of 23 per cent.

The figures obtained by The Sun highlight the pressure on the prison system which is struggling to cope with radicalisation and Muslim gangs. The percentage rise has been far greater than the Muslim population increase in the UK, which is currently at five per cent.

At Whitemoor prison in Cambridgeshire almost half the 447 inmates — 199, or 44 per cent — are Muslim.

Meanwhile, Belmarsh prison in south east London currently has 248 Muslim inmates out of 868, which equates to more than 28 per cent.

A number of high-profile terror suspects have passed through the high-security jail, including former Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg and Lee Rigby’s killers Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale.

Manchester prison is home to 202 Muslims out of the 1,106 prisoners, while 163 out of the 615 inmates at Long Lartin, Worcestershire, are Muslim.

Full Sutton, East Yorkshire, has 137 Muslim prisoners out of 586, while Woodhill in Milton Keynes has 108 out of 707.

Frankland prison in County Durham has 97 Muslim prisoners out of 832 while Wakefield, West Yorkshire, has 75 of 724.

Charity Muslim Aid has previously said that poverty is a key factor driving crime, and therefore imprisonment, among Muslims. When you look at the educational qualifications of some of these men, medical students and fully qualified doctors, accountants, engineers and the like then this is obviously nonsense. If the taxi drivers and kebab shop workers responsible for the rape of 1400 girls in Rotherham alone spent a little more time at their employment instead of brutalising innocent young girls then maybe they too could enjoy the prosperity that honest toil brings.

Islamic think-tank the Quilliam Foundation warned jails were “ripe” to become extremist recruiting grounds.

The Prison Service said: “We are committed to meeting the needs of all faiths.”