With news of a new prime minister in 10 Downing Street, a landmark UK House of Commons paper on the British prison population that was released last week was largely ignored. It contains information on the prison population size and change over time, the demographic profile of prisoners, safety in prisons, and costs per prisoner. A key conclusion of the report was that, despite the country’s Muslim community only constituting 4.8 percent of the general population, Muslim inmates count for a staggering 16 percent of the prison population. The unexplained increase in the number of Muslims in prison is indeed a worrying trend, with the potential to cause longer-term social strife between communities.
The prison population of England and Wales quadrupled in size between 1900 and 2018, with around half of this increase taking place since 1990. Meanwhile, the UK’s Muslim population has almost doubled in size since 1990. This has had an adverse effect on the number of convicted Muslim criminals, as the proportion of Muslim prisoners has increased from 8 percent in 2002 to 16 percent in 2018. Making up the second-largest faith group behind bars, little effort has been made to explain this trend.
Some have referenced the knock-on effects of the global war on terror and the UK’s own experience of homegrown extremism for the increase in the Muslim prison population. However, this is not supported by the data. According to the Home Office, only 221 people are in custody for terrorism-related offences — counter extremism does not, therefore, explain a Muslim prison population that numbers well over 13,000.
One theory for the growth is a modern phenomenon seen in the Western world of a statistically high incidence of incarcerated criminal non-Muslims converting to Islam while inside the prison system. In the UK, during the decade preceding 2014, the number of conversions to Islam among prisoners outpaced all other religions. This was replicated across Europe, with marked growth among the imprisoned Muslim population, including converts to Islam alongside inmates who entered the prison system as Muslims.
For many inside, Islam in particular provides a coping mechanism. The time to reflect has been noted to encourage religiosity, with the daily routine prescribed by the faith often keeping inmates away from alcohol and drugs. Of the many millions of people in the UK, only a few thousand convert to Islam per year. However, about 30 percent of Muslim inmates are converts to Islam, many being from black and ethnic backgrounds, according to Home Office records. In 1999, 37 percent of Muslim male prisoners were black, compared to 7 percent in the wider (British Muslim) population. To put prison conversion into context, outside less than 1 percent of British black Caribbeans are Muslim, whereas in jail the figure is almost 19 percent.
The figures show a greater link to socioeconomic factors than the need for prisoners to seek support and protection through identifying as Muslim.
Zaid M. Belbagi
The figures, however, show a greater link to socioeconomic factors than the need for prisoners to seek support and protection through identifying as Muslim. The reality is that 50 percent of Muslims are growing up in the poorest 10 percent of areas and, among the UK’s black community, this figure is even higher. Given that deprivation is the single most important predictor of crime, the unwelcome social reality is that such conditions create intergenerational cycles that prohibit the accumulation of sufficient economic or social capital to break out of poverty. Poverty impacts access to resources, school attainment, employment chances and likelihood of involvement in criminal acts. Given that more than a third of British Muslims lack higher educational qualifications and that they account for the highest number of university dropouts from any faith group, it is little surprise that they feature so prominently in UK prisons.
Commentator Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan wrote in 2017 that “if you keep a population poor, deny them opportunities to education… racially profile them, then there’s your answer.” Though there is valid reasoning in this observation, the Muslim community itself can do a lot more to ensure that education of young people is central to their lives. The government can, to a certain degree, review racial disparities — but, without community activism and engagement, the perpetual cycle of Muslim youths offending and reoffending will not be broken. New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has made uniting the country central to his term in office; he would do well to address this issue so as to best harness the talents of Britain’s largest minority faith group.
- Zaid M. Belbagi is a political commentator, and an adviser to private clients between London and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Twitter: @Moulay_Zaid
