ABSTRACT
During the 1990s, however, it was difficult to trace any real interest in the ‘faith’ of Muslim prisoners, and so they remained just that – ordinary prisoners who often had less facilities to practise their religion than their Christian fellow-inmates. If sense of insecurity, fear and preconceptions of prison as survival-of-the fittest dungeon of violence affected adult prisoners, it is even stronger among these teenagers. In many cases, the conditions of young Muslim offenders were more difficult than those of their adult counterparts. Muslim prisoners live in a confined social world with most freedoms removed from them. The loss of control over one’s life is, as Toch has demonstrated, part of the pain inflicted upon the prisoner. Therefore, going back to question of whether Islamic extremism exists in prison. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
