Following King Hearing: History of Islam in American Prisons

Rep. Peter King (R-NY) held a second hearing Wednesday on the radicalization of Muslims in America – this time focusing on those incarcerated in U.S. prisons. Witnesses included law enforcement and counter-terrorism officials, like Michael Downing, Commanding officer of Counter-Terrorism at the Los Angeles Police Department. “Instead of providing a balanced, peaceful, contemporary perspective of one of the great and peaceful religions of the world, we are left with a hijacked, cut and paste version known to the counter-terrorism practitioners as ‘prislam,'” Downing said at the hearing. We take a bigger a look at the idea of “prislam,” and find out just how big a problem radicalization in the prison system is. Imam Frederic Thaufeer al-Deen, a former prison chaplain in the state of Oklahoma and the Federal Bureau of Prisons, discusses the role of Islam in prisons.