By Mimi Hall, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — The federal government is working with prisons in dozens of states to improve intelligence gathering and monitoring of inmates in a stepped-up campaign to curb homegrown terrorism behind bars.
The FBI and Homeland Security are urging prison officials to do more extensive background checks on workers and volunteers who meet with inmates. And members of Congress are looking at possible reforms in prison security as a way to combat the spread of extremist Islamic beliefs.
Chief among the concerns is that radical Muslim clerics could have access to prisoners and coerce them with terrorist literature.
“It’s a concern because we know that violent extremist groups will target people in prisons,” said Donald Van Duyn, the FBI’s counterterrorism director. “We’re working to improve monitoring, improve training and increase awareness.”
The intensified surveillance follows the recent arrests of people alleged to be home-grown terror suspects in London and Canada, which have raised concerns that the USA may be vulnerable to terrorism at the hands of its own citizens. British authorities in August said they broke up a conspiracy to blow up U.S.-bound airliners with liquid bombs, and Canadian officials charged 17 people in June with an al-Qaeda-inspired plot to possess 3 tons of bombmaking materials.