Lessons from Northern Ireland: don’t put Islamist extremists in special prison units

In a plan to help prevent convicted Islamist extremists from radicalising other prisoners, the UK government is proposing to place them in “specialised prison units”. Northern Ireland has been required to imprison Irish Republican and Loyalist prisoners in separate specialised units for many decades, but the lessons from this experience challenge the wisdom of such an approach for Islamist extremists. More...