Separate prison for extremist inmates
Print Edition
AUSTRALIA’S largest state yesterday said it was building a separate prison wing for extremist inmates to tackle radicalization following a rise in homegrown attacks.
New South Wales, home to about a third of Australia’s 24-million-strong population, has been the site of two terror attacks in recent years, including a cafe siege in 2014 where two hostages were killed.
“We are in new territory. The incidents of terrorism activity we’ve seen in Australia and around the world has been unprecedented in modern times,” state Premier Gladys Berejiklian said in Sydney.
The government said it was spending A$47 million (US$35 million) to create a jail within Goulburn Correctional Centre to separate inmates with extremist views from other prisoners to reduce radicalization.
The new facility, which the government hopes to complete by 2018, can house up to 54 prisoners.
Over 30 of the 45 inmates currently held in Goulburn’s highest-security wing are behind bars on terror-related charges, Corrective Services NSW Commissioner Peter Severin said.
He added that five prisoners had been radicalized while in jail in recent years.
The announcement came just days after state and territory leaders said they would look to restrict parole for criminals with terrorism-related links.
Homegrown extremism
The changes came after a fatal shootout in Melbourne last week by a man of Somali background in an attack claimed by the Islamic State.
The man, 29-year-old Yacqub Khayre, was linked to a 2009 terror plot targeting an Australian army barracks and had been recently released on parole.
Khayre killed a receptionist at a serviced apartment block before dying in a gun battle with police.
Canberra has become worried about homegrown extremism and officials said earlier this year they had halted 11 terror attacks on home soil in the past two years.
But several have taken place, including the murder of a Sydney police employee in 2015 by a 15-year-old boy, who was then killed in a gun battle with officers.
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