Conservatives announce with new prison security plan

Specialist prison officers should have access to lethal weapons as part of a crackdown on Islamist gangs in jails, Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick announces today.

The highly-trained teams should also be handed tasers, stun grenades and baton rounds in an effort to tackle the scourge of violence carried out by Islamist extremists and dangerous criminals in high security jails.

The plan, taken from a series of recommendations by Ian Acheson, a counter-extremism expert and former prison governor, is part of a rapid review into the violence commissioned by Mr Jenrick.

The announcement comes following a spate of attacks on prison officers in jails. In January 2020 a terrorist accompanied by a violent offender he had radicalised carried out an attack on a prison officer at HMP Whitemoor. In April 2025 at HMP Frankland a terrorist, Hashem Abedi, continued a pattern of behaviour that involved ambushing and attacking members of staff by throwing hot oil followed by a stabbing attack on staff that seriously injured three officers. Last month Axel Rudakubana, convicted of a crime that was not judged terrorism but had all the hallmarks of it, allegedly attacked and injured a prison officer with boiling water at HMP Belmarsh.

As part of the package of measure, the Conservatives will also:

• Remove all radical Islamist Imams working in prisons and retroactively apply counter-terror security clearance to all pastoral officers. 
• Immediately roll out of high-collar stab vests to frontline officers 
• Mandate quarterly release of data on religious conversions in prison and faith-related incidents.
• Legislate to overturn the De Silva ruling to strip back judicial interference in operational decisions by Governors to isolate extremists.

Robert Jenrick MP, Shadow Justice Secretary, said: 

“Islamist gangs and violent prisoners in our jails are out of control. It's a national security emergency but the government is dithering. If they don't act soon, there is a very real risk that a prison officer is kidnapped or murdered in the line of duty, or that a terrorist attack is directed from inside prison. 

“I commissioned highly-respected former Governor, Ian Acheson, to conduct a rapid review to come up with the answers the government should adopt right away. We have to stop pussy-footing around Islamist extremists and violent offenders in jails. That means arming specialist prison officer teams with tasers and stun grenades, as well as giving them access to lethal weapons in exceptional circumstances.

“If Prison Governors can't easily keep terrorist influencers and radicalising inmates apart from the mainstream prisoners they target, then we don't control our prisons - they do. We must take back control and restore order by giving officers the powers and protection they need.”

Professor Ian Acheson is a former prison Governor and now a globally recognised expert on the management of terrorists and other highly dangerous offenders. In 2016 he produced a landmark review of Islamist extremism in prisons, probation and youth justice. He pioneered the concept of separation of highly subversive offenders intent on radicalising others and threatening national security.

Ian Acheson said: 

“Too often what goes wrong behind the walls of our high security jails passes unnoticed, as does the bravery of the men and women in uniform who deal every day with terrorists and other highly dangerous offenders. Robert Jenrick is right – the threat to officer safety is now intolerable and must be met decisively by the Government. The balance inside too many of our prisons has shifted away from control by the state to mere containment and the price is soaring levels of staff assaults and wrecked rehabilitation. Broken officers can't help fix broken people - or protect the public from violent extremism.”

Background: 

• In January the Chief Inspector of Prisons, Charlie Taylor, warned that drones delivering contraband were so regular that guns or explosives could be smuggled into Category A prisons containing terrorists, murderers and organised crime bosses. He raised the prospect of escapes and hostage taking. The Prison officer's association has predicted ‘incendiary devices, a gun or ammunition' will be delivered unless there is action. Back in 2022 the Government's Independent Reviewer of terrorism legislation, Jonathan Hall KC, warned of a terrorist attack in prison. 

• Staff assault rates also stand at record levels. In some of our youth prisons it has become statistically inevitable that all youth custody workers will be injured on duty.

• The Times has reported Islamist gangs controlled so many wings that those who did not want to convert to Islam were forced to seek protection in the segregation unit - an inversion of their original purpose. Jonathan Hall KC warned “the prison service has failed to recognise the dangers of Islamist gang-type activity and the influence of TACT offenders and lost its role in the national endeavour to reduce the risk of terrorism.”

• There are currently three separation centres, all within the High Security Estate, with capacity of 28 prisoners. According to Written Parliamentary Questions, just two are currently operational. However, there are 257 prisoners in custody for terrorist offences, mainly under the Terrorism Act 2006 or on conviction for offences which a judge has decided were ‘terrorism connected'. Those imprisoned for Islamist extremism now comprise 65% of the population while the fastest growing group are those with Neofascist ideologies at 27%. However, in terms of lethality and threat, Islamist extremism was and remains by far the greatest terrorist risk both inside and outside the prison walls.

• Professor Ian Acheson's rapid review found that the under-utilisation of Separation Centres was the fault of senior leadership in HMPPS who were hostile to the concept and were fearful of misplaced fears of racism. However, in Jonathan Hall KC's review into Terrorism in Prison in 2022, he found: “the existence of a Separation Centre regime was found by [researchers] to have a dissuasive impact against poor behaviour. This is important for prisoners serving very long sentences who may have little to fear from short term disciplinary measures or loss of incentives and earned privileges but may fear being transferred to a Separation Centre.”

• Earlier this year the High court quashed the decision keeping extremist prisoner De Silva in a Separation Centre because officials ignored his written representations, breaching common law fairness and Article 8. That finding opened the door to Human Rights Act damages, meaning an Islamist could be paid for a procedural flaw. This risks rewarding lawfare while leaving the separation regime legally fragile. Unless fixed, it invites a stream of copycat JR claims from other high risk inmates. The result is that Governors have to invest huge amounts of time and resources justifying each operation decision - making Separation Centres prohibitively hard to use at scale. We will legislate to shut that door by tightening the Prison Act 1952 and Rule 46A, scrapping any right to damages by disapplying s8 of the Human Rights Act, and embedding a robust ouster clause, to close this loophole for good and stop repeat challenges.

• In 2016, Acheson warned Prison Imams are unable and sometimes unwilling to promote British values and take on violent fundamentalism by Muslim prisoners. Nearly 10 years on, research by the Shadow Justice team shows that remains the case.

• Mohammed Yusuf Ahmed is Head of Chaplaincy & Staff Care Team Lead at HMP Isis, the prison with the highest number of Muslim inmates. Formerly employed at HMP Brixton, in 2011, Yusuf said that “Barbie dolls belong on the top shelf. What is the point of a four-year-old girl having a doll that is dressed going to a nightclub? What is the point of a doll that has voluptuous assets? It's a sign of the Day of Judgment.” In 2014, it was reported that Ahmed belonged to the Islamist organisation Al-Hikma Media, which has platformed preachers who advocate killing women who engage in premarital sex.

• Imams are also still using the Tarbiyah programme, which has been used in English and Welsh prisons since 2011 to teach prisoners about Islam. In 2016, the programme was criticised for including a section on jihad, in which it says that taking up arms to fight “evil” is “one of the noblest acts”.

• While no figures are published on the number of Muslim converts in prisons, analysis by the Telegraph showed that, in 2023, 19.9% of Muslims in UK prisons are white, nearly three times higher than the rate in the general Muslim population, where 7.8 percent are recorded as white. 

• This comes alongside reports that Muslim prisoners are being exempted from sniffer dogsearches, and accounts of non-Muslim prisoners at HMP Frankland being isolated from the rest of the prison population in order to protect them from Islamist gangs.

• In recent written parliamentary answers, Labour's Prisons Minister was unable to use the term ‘Islamist' or provide an assessment of the threat posed by radical Islamist prisoners.