By: Satad Sharar
Internal reports say Canadian spies have room for improvement on their extremism investigations in correctional facilities. The two main organizations that deal with these secret investigations are the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Two national security lawyers were given the task of detecting inconsistencies in the way provincial and federal facilities share information with these organizations and suggest improvements on them to make investigations more efficient. “One of the concerns we have is the lack of coverage over persons convicted of terrorism offences once they are in jail,” stated the report. It is a known fact that there are extremists in prisons with religious extremism and right-wing nationalism being the most common types. “The vast majority of inmates will be released to the community. The challenge is to monitor these released offenders to evaluate the threat posed, if any,” stated the report. It is very hard to detect and deal with every single threat, but an increase in awareness will lead to more extremists being dealt with while they are in custody of the police. The report suggests making changes so the sharing of information between provincial/federal facilities and CSIS/RCMP is easier and more efficient. Implementing these changes would mean that the threat towards society from these extremists would be lowered as these people could be managed after their release from prison.
A lot of people believe that inmates are easily influenced by extremism but this is not true. There are lots of things that are looked down upon in prison like pedophilia and sexual assault. It is quite surprising when people find out extremism is also one of the things that is disliked in prison. This is because people in prison usually do not accept other strong ideologies, such as extremism.
While these ideas are not widespread, they are quite dangerous as they lead people to commit horrible acts around the world. In order to stop these acts, the threats have to be dealt with while they are in the correctional system. Dealing with them in incarceration will not only save lives but also the public generalization of a whole religion or community being regarded as extremists/terrorists.
Links
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/csis-rcmp-prisons-extremism-1.6431967