641© 2009 american Society of criminologyCriminology & Public Policy • Volume 8 • Issue 3

Policy Essay

prisons and fear of terrorism

James AustinT h e J F A I n s t i t u t e

The article by useem and clayton (2009, this issue) addresses two major themes that dominate our thinking on terrorism. First, we assume that all terrorists are sophisti-cated, extremely dangerous, and (unless killed or incarcerated) capable of inflicting

mass destruction. The second is that they exist in such large numbers that we must allocate large amounts of our military and criminal justice resources to identify, kill, or contain terror-ists before they act. useem and clayton examine the more narrow fear that our massive prison system may be becoming a “breeding ground” for future terrorists and what (if anything) should be done about it before it is too late.

By definition, terrorism is a political act. Students of criminology and labeling theory learn early that for, an act to be defined as criminal, one (usually the state) must successfully apply the label to the act (Becker, 1963; lemert, 1951). The shear act of killing someone does not constitute it as a crime. Depending on who does it and under what circumstances, the very act could alternatively be viewed as heroic or as a brutal murder. The differential use of the label also applies to the murder of large numbers of people. When people resist invasion and occupation by a foreign and more powerful state by conducting acts of violence, they become labeled as terrorists. Often, these so-called terrorists—especially the leaders of terrorist groups—have no prior criminal behavior that predates their involvement in terrorism.

To date, there are no examples of a person who was sentenced to a u.S. prison who later became a terrorist and then inflicted mass destruction on fellow u.S. citizens. But could it happen? at first, I was somewhat surprised that the editors of this journal were considering a publication that examines this question in detail. One would think that, with all the pressing issues surrounding the united States’ growing 1.7 million prisoner population, this topic would be among the lowest of priorities for criminologists to study and debate. But the politics of fear that have been successfully linked to September 11, 2001, seem to trump a rational assessment of the potential danger we face from terrorism emanating from the nation’s prison system.

More significantly, at the time of this writing, this concern has been amplified by recent political events. president Obama promised on the campaign trail to close the notorious Guan-

direct correspondence to James Austin, the JFA Institute, 5 Walter Houp court ne, Washington, dc 20002 (e-mail: asstin@aol.com).

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tanamo Bay prison which, according to our government houses more than 240 of the world’s most feared terrorists. Now there are concerns that it would be dangerous to transfer them to federal maximum-security prisons on u.S. soil.1 One primary concern raised by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Robert Mueller is that such a move would expose the bulging u.S. prison population to radicalization by these 240 people who would be contained in super-max single cells:

The concerns we have about individuals who may support terrorism being in the united States run from concerns about providing financing [to] radicalizing others as well as the potential for individuals undertaking attacks in the united States. all of those are relevant concerns.2

as is common practice with our government, the FBI chief would not list any specific individuals that reflect these concerns. and never mind the uncomfortable fact that this has not yet happened even with the presence of more than 300 such terrorists already in the custody of the Bureau of prisons. But to further fuel our fears, the Department of Defense recently reported that 5% of the nearly 600 people released from Gitmo have become involved once again in ter-rorist activities or “are suspected of being involved.” compared with the u.S. prison recidivism rate, the Gitmo rate is pretty good. On a more serious note, though, we (criminologists or the public) cannot verify these data. But they certainly provide a useful image of fear to convince the public that—absent Gitmo—terrorism would be breaking out all over the united States.

Finally, two of our leading academic institutions (the George Washington university [GWu] and the university of Virginia [Virginia] with the help of Department of Justice and Homeland Security funds) have published a detailed report ominously titled Out of the shadows: Getting ahead of prisoner radicalism, which raises the same fears. GWu’s Homeland Security policy Institute and Virginia’s critical Incident analysis Group believe that our u.S. prison population could easily become a breeding ground for future terrorists unless we take action now (cilluffo and Saathoff, 2006). The evidence provided to support their conclusion is five cases of which only three are examples of u.S.-born prisoners who were radicalized by Islamic teachings while they were incarcerated in u.S. prisons. like Director Mueller, the authors said there are many more, but as always these cases cannot be shared with the public because of “…

the sensitive nature of on-going investigations…” (cilluffo and Saathoff, 2006: iii). Despite

1. the current budget request from the department of Justice suggests that it would cost anywhere from $50 to $80 million as requested by the department of Justice to effect such a transfer (that is $207,000–$330,000 per transferred prisoner). those familiar with the business of transferring prisoners know that the costs are more likely to be zero. the united states already has a considerable infrastructure designed to move known and suspected terrorists from one place to another for detention and torture. In fact, a recent editorial by Harvard law Professor Jack goldsmith pointed out that an even larger but unspecified number of detainees is located at the Bagram u.s. Air Force Base in Afghanistan. Furthermore, the united states continues to transfer suspects to other countries as part of its rendition program for purposes of using interrogation methods that are not legal in the united states (goldsmith, 2009).

2. see msnbc.msn.com/id/30846430/#.

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the small sample, these intelligence experts confidently recommended that the following steps be taken to preempt a terrorist attack by u.S. prisoners:

congress should establish a commission to investigate this issue in depth. an objective risk assessment is urgently needed in order to better understand the nature of the threat and to formulate and calibrate proactive prevention and response efforts accordingly. enhanced information would enable officials to address this issue now, rather than forcing them to manage a crisis later (cilluffo and Saathoff, 2006: v).

How Dangerous and Competent Are They?One of the three incidents cited by cilluffo and Saathoff (2006) is the Kevin James case. a closer analysis of James illustrates well how he and his band of three other converts were incapable of being effective terrorists. James was serving a lengthy prison term in california and became a converted Muslim. He and a fellow convert (levar Washington) then formed a group called the Jam’yyat al-Islam al-Saheeh (JIS), which translates from arabic as “The association of True Islam.” The u.S. Department of Justice now claims that the two-person JIS team was dedicated to terrorist acts against u.S. military bases, synagogues, and Israeli government facilities. While incarcerated, the two drafted a document referred to as “Blue print 2005,” which listed the “do’s and don’ts” for their group.

learn arabic1. acquire a steady job that does not interfere with learning arabic2. acquire two weapons (pistols) with silencers3. appoint a member (from the five) to find contacts for explosives or to learn bomb making. 4. We will need bombs that can be activated from a distanceand “In order to fulfill these task [sic] you must become legitimate. acquire identifica-5. tion, drivers license, work/school, keep regular contact with your parole agent, attempt to remove your tattoos and monitor your look. Your dress code must not bring attention…casual dress so as not to arouse ‘extremist suspicion.’ We have work to do.”3

Washington was later released from prison. He then recruited two other men who were subse-quently arrested by law enforcement after committing a series of gas station robberies. a search of their apartment found the blue print and other materials, such as a press release to be aired once they had committed their acts of violence. apparently they had badly strayed from the blue print and returned to what they knew better: common stickups of gas stations. These men clearly do not fit the stereotypical image of terrorists as sophisticated and dangerous.

The second example is Jeff Fort. I met many of Fort’s associates who were incarcerated at Stateville and Joliet prisons where I worked from 1970 to 1974. at that time, Fort was a leader of the chicago street gang originally called the Blackstone Rangers. Fort had a lengthy juvenile

3. see nefafoundation.org/miscellaneous/Featureddocs/u.s._v_James_PleaAgreement.pdf.

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and adult criminal record. He and his associates were no more than gang bangers who knew how to steal, intimidate, assault, and murder rival gang members. Fort and his gang were not formally educated and had fewer technical skills that would make him a threat to anyone beyond those in the south-side neighborhoods of chicago—which the Rangers controlled.

Throughout the years, Fort and others transformed the Rangers into the Black p. Stone Nation. In the late 1960s, the gang was able to obtain federal funds from the now defunct Office of economic Opportunity. These funds led to accusations of fraud and misuse and ultimately to Fort’s federal conviction and 5-year sentence. While incarcerated, Fort converted to Islam and, when he was released in 1976, he changed his gang’s name to el Rukn. The gang continued their drug dealing and Fort was again sentenced to federal prison for drug trafficking. While in the Bureau of prison, his plot to receive $2.5 million from libya to commit unspecified acts of terrorism was taped during telephone conversations. Fort and his group of would be terrorists never got the money and, if they had, I suspect they would have spent it on activities they were skilled at—drug dealing and assaulting and killing rival drug dealers.4

My point is that, although James and Fort were threats to public safety, they never could inflict the kind of damage and mass destruction suggested by our national law-enforcement leaders, domestic terrorism experts, and university-based think tanks. Their criminality pre-dated their romantic association with Islam and terrorism, and they lacked the necessary skills to become effective terrorists.

The Disproportionate Costs and benefits of the War on TerrorI would be remiss not to remind readers of the costs and benefits of the war on terror. This war parallels our other wars on crime and drugs. For example, the united States is spending approximately $215 billion a year for the criminal justice system, of which almost $70 billion is spent on corrections.5 conversely, the total economic loss to victims of “street crime” in 2003, as reported by the u.S. Department of Justice through its victimization survey, was an estimated $15.4 billion (u.S. Department of Justice, 2003).

Similar to the disproportionate costs versus benefits of our wars on crime and drugs, the costs of the war on terror can only be viewed as excessive. Fewer than 3,000 people were killed in the 9/11 Twin Towers and pentagon attacks.6 economic losses have been estimated at $27.2 billion. Included here were the destruction of private and public assets ($16.2 billion) and another $11 billion in rescue, cleanup, and related costs (looney, 2002).7

4. For a summary of Jeff Fort’s career and associated activities, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Fort.

5. see ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/tables/exptyptab.htm.

6. It is noteworthy that approximately 100,000 people die each year from infections acquired while in a hospital (connolly and yourish, 2009).

7. these are not necessarily “losses” because many companies and individuals profited from the disaster by being awarded government cleanup and construction contracts and replacing lost jobs that occurred only in manhattan.

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In reaction to this attack, the united States launched two wars against afghanistan and Iraq that have cost thus far more than $800 billion with another $76 billion requested in 2009 and no end in sight.8 More than 4,200 american troops have been killed and another 31,000 have been seriously wounded. Iraq has had 9,000 police and soldiers killed. an estimated 55,000 insurgents have been killed. The number of Iraqi civilians killed ranges from 100,000 to 600,000 and another 2.5 million Iraqis have been displaced.9 at what point do these mounting costs “break even” with the costs of the attacks on 9/11?

The Larger False-Positive HypothesisThis leads me to the specific policy recommendations of useem and clayton (2009). again let us remind ourselves that the number of actual cases in which terrorist acts have been led by released u.S. prisoners who were radicalized while incarcerated is zero. The only remaining question is whether there is any credible reason to believe that this number will change. useem and clayton observe that the prospect of scores of terrorists being created by our prison system is unlikely. Indeed, one major reason for this is that Muslim and other religious groups in prisons—as well as the overall pro-american values of most prisoners—serve to reduce the likelihood of such cells developing. existing intelligence and self-regulating prisoner control systems—coupled with the general lack of competence to become an effective terrorist cell—make the whole issue mute and unworthy of serious inquiry. So in this regard the article should be useful by helping remove this topic from further investigation by scholars at our universities.

But there is one issue that needs additional scrutiny that was not raised by the authors. This is the much larger false positive of why there have not been any terrorist attacks since 2001 when everyone predicted there would be. It defies common sense that the absence of any post-9/11 attacks is solely because of the greater use of military and law-enforcement assets. The relative ease with which a few dedicated suicide bombers could enter and simultaneously detonate explosives in some of our major railroad stations or shopping malls—as is performed on almost a daily basis in Iraq and elsewhere—strongly suggests that such cells do not exist in the united States. Investigating this hypothesis would be a far better use of criminological assets.

8. see nationalpriorities.org/costofwar_home.

9. see zfacts.com/p/466.html.

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ReferencesBecker, Howard S. 1963. Outsiders: Studies in the sociology of deviance. New York: Free press.

cilluffo, Frank and Gregory Saathoff. 2006. Out of the shadows: Getting ahead of prisoner radicalization. George Washington university, Homeland Security policy Institute and university of Virginia, critical Incident analysis Group. Retrieved June 5, 2009 from gwu.edu/~dhs/reports/rad/Out%20of%20the%20shadows.pdf.

connolly, ceci and Karen Yourish. 2009. In search of health care reform. The Washington Post, June 9: a8.

Goldsmith, Jack. 2009. The detainee shell game. The Washington Post, May 31: a17.

lemert, edwin M. 1951. Social pathology. New York: McGraw-Hill.

looney, Robert. 2002. economic costs to the united States stemming from the 9/11 attacks. Strategic Insights, 1.

u.S. Department of Justice. 2003. Criminal victimization, 2002 (NcJ 199994). Washington, Dc: Bureau of Justice Statistics.

useem, Bert and Obie clayton. 2009. Radicalization of u.S. prisoners. Criminology & Public Policy. This issue.

James Austin has more than 25 years of experience in correctional planning and research. He is the former director of the Institute on crime, Justice, and corrections at George Washington university in Washington, Dc. He serves (or has recently served) as director for several large u.S. Department of Justice-funded research and evaluation programs. He was jointly appointed by the Department of Justice and the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice to monitor the state’s compliance with the issues specified in a memorandum of agreement. austin has also served as the project director of the Bureau of Justice assistance-funded corrections options technical assistance program, which provides a variety of assistance to local jail, probation, parole, and prison systems. He also directed two Bureau of Justice assistance projects focusing on juveniles in adult correctional facilities and a national assessment of adult and juvenile private correctional facilities. In addition, he assists parole boards in Nevada, pennsylvania, louisiana, Kentucky, and Maryland develop risk-assessment systems for prisoners eligible for release and he serves as an advisor to The urban Institute’s Returning Home Initiative. austin has authored numerous publications, was named by the american correctional association as its 1991 recipient of the peter p. lejin’s Research award, and received the Western Society of criminology paul Tappin award for outstanding contributions in the field of criminology.

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