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TERROR INMATES: COUNTERING VIOLENT 

EXTREMISM IN PRISON AND BEYOND 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

COUNTERTERRORISM 

AND INTELLIGENCE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

OCTOBER 28, 2015 

Serial No. 114–40 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/ 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas, Chairman 

LAMAR SMITH, Texas 

PETER T. KING, New York 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan, Vice Chair 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

CURT CLAWSON, Florida 

JOHN KATKO, New York 

WILL HURD, Texas 

EARL L. ‘‘BUDDY’’ CARTER, Georgia 

MARK WALKER, North Carolina 

BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia 

MARTHA MCSALLY, Arizona 

JOHN RATCLIFFE, Texas 

DANIEL M. DONOVAN, JR., New York 

BENNIE G. THOMPSON, Mississippi 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

CEDRIC L. RICHMOND, Louisiana 

WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts 

DONALD M. PAYNE, JR., New Jersey 

FILEMON VELA, Texas 

BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey 

KATHLEEN M. RICE, New York 

NORMA J. TORRES, California 

BRENDAN P. SHIELDS, Staff Director 

JOAN V. O’HARA, General Counsel 

MICHAEL S. TWINCHEK, Chief Clerk 

I. LANIER AVANT, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON COUNTERTERRORISM AND INTELLIGENCE 

PETER T. KING, New York, Chairman 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan 

LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania 

JOHN KATKO, New York 

WILL HURD, Texas 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas (ex officio) 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts 

FILEMON VELA, Texas 

BENNIE G. THOMPSON, Mississippi (ex officio) 

MANDY BOWERS, Subcommittee Staff Director 

DENNIS TERRY, Subcommittee Clerk 

HOPE GOINS, Minority Subcommittee Staff Director 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

STATEMENTS

The Honorable Peter T. King, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of New York, and Chairman, Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence ................................................................................................................... 1 

The Honorable Brian Higgins, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of New York, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Counterterrorism 

and Intelligence: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 2 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 3 

The Honorable Bennie G. Thompson, a Representative in Congress From 

the State of Mississippi, and Ranking Member, Committee on Homeland 

Security: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 4 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 5 

WITNESSES

Mr. Jerome P. Bjelopera, Specialist in Organized Crime and Terrorism, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 6 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 7 

Mr. Tony C. Parker, Assistant Commissioner, Department of Correction, 

State of Tennessee: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 12 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 14 

Mr. Brian H. Levin, Professor, Department of Criminal Justice, and Director, 

Center for Study of Hate and Extremism, California State University, San 

Bernardino: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 16 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 19 

(1) 

TERROR INMATES: COUNTERING VIOLENT 

EXTREMISM IN PRISON AND BEYOND 

Wednesday, October 28, 2015 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY, SUBCOMMITTEE ON COUNTERTERRORISM AND INTELLIGENCE, Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:10 a.m., in Room 

311, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Peter T. King [Chairman 

of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives King, Barletta, Katko, Hurd, Higgins, 

Keating, Vela, and Thompson. 

Also present: Representatives Langevin and Jackson Lee. 

Mr. KING. Good morning. The Committee on Homeland Security, 

Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence will come to 

order. 

The subcommittee is meeting today to hear testimony from three 

distinguished experts regarding radicalization in U.S. prisons. I 

would like to welcome the Members of the subcommittee and express my appreciation for the witnesses who are here today, and 

I now recognize myself for an opening statement. 

The United States is facing a long-term growing threat of terrorism from ISIS and other radical Islamist terrorist groups. At 

least 55 people in the United States have been arrested for links 

to ISIS so far this year. Over the past several years, approximately 

200 more have travelled to the Middle East to join the terror 

group. Just last week, FBI Director Comey stated that the FBI had 

an estimated 900 active investigations of suspected Islamic Stateinspired operatives and other home-grown violent extremists across 

the United States, and as previously noted, that such investigations are taking place in all 50 States. There can be no doubt that 

we have an extremism problem in the United States. 

Even more disturbing is that there are an unknown number of 

people who are watching terror propaganda and potentially being 

radicalized but who are not on law enforcement’s radar. Compelled 

by this Jihadist propaganda, these individuals could choose to carry 

out a small-scale attack with little planning and no notice. 

DHS Secretary Johnson and Director Comey have done an excellent job over the past year communicating with the public about 

this threat, and their agencies are stretched to the limit in their 

efforts to investigate, arrest, and prosecute terrorists walking the 

streets. 

An issue that rarely comes up, however, is how the United States 

is preparing to ensure that the 100-plus individuals in Federal 
2 

prison for links to terrorism who will be released in the next 5 

years do not pose a continued threat to the homeland. In the wake 

of 9/11, our Federal, State, and local law enforcement did great 

work in arresting and prosecuting potential terrorists, but we cannot forget about these individuals once they are incarcerated because 90 percent will eventually be released. We have never been 

faced with such large numbers of terror inmates before. 

When this committee held a hearing in 2011 on prison 

radicalization, the primary focus was on the threat of inmates 

being radicalized once in prison. There are still a number of concerns related to how prisoners are monitored, how employees are 

trained to watch for possible signs of radicalization, and how religious service providers are vetted. 

We are all familiar with the known cases of individuals who became radicalized inside prison and then attempted to carry out attacks within the homeland, cases like Kevin James and Jose 

Padilla. Prison radicalization is not unique to the United States. In 

France, of course, the Charlie Hebdo attackers were radicalized in 

prison. In the United States, the challenge of prison radicalization, 

both within prison and once inmates are released, must be addressed with consistent proactive information sharing among Federal agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Prisons and State 

and local partners, close cooperation among prison chaplains of all 

faiths and with law enforcement, and careful monitoring of former 

inmates after they are released into society. 

The goal of this hearing is to have a public discussion about the 

eventual release of hundreds of individuals serving time for terrorism and to understand what is being done to prevent further 

radicalization within the prison system. We welcome today our distinguished panel of experts to testify about the current risk of prison radicalization, for providing their views in current Government 

programs, and the lack of sufficient programs, and provide recommendations to help the Federal Government and Congress create an effective response to this situation. 

I now recognize the Ranking Member of the subcommittee, the 

gentleman from New York, my good friend, Mr. Higgins, for his 

opening statement. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank you for holding this, today’s hearing, to explore the detention and monitoring 

of radical ideology in prisons, and to ensure that information is 

shared between corrections personnel and law enforcement before 

the release of inmates, while understanding the limitations of sharing such information after an inmate’s release from prison. 

As we begin today’s discussion, I believe it is important to distinguish between the terms radicalization and terrorism. Under the 

First Amendment, an individual’s thought and speech are protected, including radical and extremist thought and speech. When 

radicalized individuals move from radicalized thought to illegal terrorist activity and other crimes, the criminal activity is not protected. 

Based on that distinction, I am hopeful that today’s discussion 

will focus on how we can prevent former inmates from becoming 

a terrorist actor upon release. It is difficult to predict the behavior 

of an incarcerated individual upon release from prison. By its na-
3 

ture, a prison may bring together disaffected people who might be 

receptive to antisocial messages offering intolerant solutions to 

complex problems of identity and belonging. 

Therefore, it should not come as a surprise that some disaffected 

prisoners may join extremist groups and engage in extreme behavior in an attempt to find meaning, establish bonds, or combat a 

sense of fear and alienation within prison walls. Since 9/11, more 

than 250 people have been convicted for their involvement in homegrown violent Jihadist plots. However, an analysis of home-grown 

violent Jihadist activity since 9/11 showed that these plots have 

nearly always featured people who radicalized outside of prison. 

This statistic and similar numbers prove, despite a few high-profile cases, terrorism plots among prison-radicalized violent Muslim 

extremists are rare, but we must remain vigilant. Radicalization in 

prisons remains a concern abroad both in non-Muslim and Muslimmajority countries. Middle Eastern governments have struggled to 

contain violent radicalization in their prisons and have developed 

innovative approaches to addressing the issue with varying degrees 

of success. 

The United States does not have prisoner deradicalization programs, as many of our Constitutional rights do not permit aspects 

of several of these programs conducted abroad. Today, I hope we 

can have a robust discussion of the existence of these programs as 

we seek to understand whether post-prison countering violent extremist reentry programs may be helpful in reducing recidivism 

and decreasing the allure of committing a terrorist attack upon release from prison. 

I yield back. 

[The statement of Ranking Member Higgins follows:] 

STATEMENT OF RANKING MEMBER BRIAN HIGGINS

OCTOBER 28, 2015 

Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank you for holding today’s hearing to explore 

the detection and monitoring of radical ideology in prisons and ensure that information is shared between corrections personnel and law enforcement before the release 

of inmates, while understanding the limitations of sharing such information after 

an inmate’s release from prison. 

As we begin today’s discussion, I believe it is important to distinguish the terms 

‘‘radicalization’’ and ‘‘terrorism.’’ Under the First Amendment, an individual’s 

thought and speech are protected, including radical and extremist thought and 

speech. When radicalized individuals move from radicalized thought to illegal terrorist activity or other crimes, the criminal activity is not protected. 

Based on that distinction, I am hopeful that today’s discussion will focus on how 

we can prevent former inmates from becoming a terrorist actor upon release. It is 

it difficult to predict the behavior of an incarcerated individual upon release from 

prison. By its nature, prison may bring together disaffected people who might be 

receptive to anti-social messages offering intolerant solutions to complex problems 

of identity and belonging. 

Therefore, it should not come as a surprise that some disaffected prisoners may 

join extreme groups and engage in extreme behavior in an attempt to find meaning, 

establish bonds, or combat a sense of fear and alienation within prison walls. 

Since 9/11, more than 250 people have been convicted for their involvement in 

home-grown violent jihadist plots. However, an analysis of home-grown violent 

jihadist activity since 9/11, showed that these plots have nearly always featured 

people who radicalized outside of prison. 

This statistic and similar numbers prove, despite a few high-profile cases, terrorism plots among prison-radicalized, violent, Muslim extremists are rare. 

But we must remain vigilant. Radicalization in prisons remains a concern abroad, 

both in non-Muslim and Muslim-majority countries. Middle Eastern governments 
4 

have struggled to contain violent radicalization in their prisons, and have developed 

innovative approaches to addressing the issue, with varying degrees of success. 

The United States does not have prisoner deradicalization programs, as many of 

our Constitutional rights do not permit aspects of several of the CVE programs conducted abroad. 

Today, I hope we can have a robust discussion of the existence of these CVE programs as we seek to understand whether post-prison CVE re-entry programs may 

be helpful in reducing recidivism and decreasing the allure of committing a terrorist 

act upon release from prison. 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Ranking Member Higgins. 

I now recognize the Ranking Member and former Chairman of 

the full committee, Mr. Thompson, for a statement. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and former 

Chairman of the full committee. I would like to thank you for calling this hearing to examine current prison counter-violent extremism programs and explore the development of such programs for 

inmates post-release. 

The United States holds an estimated 1.5 million prisoners in 

State and Federal custody at the end of 2014. While that number 

is down 1 percent from the previous year, the United States continues to have the highest-documented incarceration rate in the 

world. 

I am aware that most of today’s discussion will likely focus on 

a possible radicalization of Muslim inmates; however, I would like 

to encourage the committee to remember that limiting this committee’s oversight of radicalization to one religion ignores threats 

posed by violent extremists of all religious and ethnic backgrounds. 

Violent gangs organized along racial and ethnic lines exist 

throughout United States prisons. The National Gang Intelligence 

Center has assessed that major gangs pose a serious domestic 

threat, particularly National-level prison gangs that maintain substantial influence over street gangs. In some cases, counting incarcerated members as well as affiliated individuals outside of correctional facilities, prison gangs can wield influence over thousands of 

individuals, both incarcerated and free, throughout the United 

States. 

It is clear that prison gangs often pose a security threat to prisoners and prison staff, as well as the American public. Some prison 

gangs delve into radical or extremist ideologies, and in a number 

of instances these ideologies are integral in fashion to cohesive 

group identities within prison walls. Several gangs in America’s 

prisons subscribe to white supremacist beliefs, views broadly 

shared by some domestic extremist groups such as the Aryan Nation, the National Socialist Party, and the National Alliance. 

For example, the Aryan Brotherhood is a particularly dangerous 

National-level gang with approximately 15,000 members in and out 

of prison. In June 1998, James Byrd, a particularly disabled black 

man, was dragged to his death by 3 ex-convicts, 2 of whom were 

members of the Aryan Brotherhood and the other was seeking 

membership with that group. The presence of these types of intact 

and operational gang organizations, coupled with the ability of 

their leaders to control and direct operations outside of the prison 

from within the prison’s walls should not be ignored. 

The willingness of these groups to use violence, undermine order, 

and commit mayhem is not dependent on religious belief or polit-
5 

ical ideology, nor do these groups limit their terrorist acts to prison 

walls. The use of a prison as a platform for collaboration between 

both criminal and extremist gangs and groups, pose a real and 

present threat to our homeland. With that, Mr. Chair, I yield back. 

[The statement of Ranking Member Thompson follows:] 

STATEMENT OF RANKING MEMBER BENNIE G. THOMPSON

OCTOBER 28, 2015 

Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank you for holding this hearing to examine current prison countering violent extremism programs and explore the development of 

such programs for inmates post-release. The United States held an estimated 1.5 

million prisoners in State and Federal custody at the end of 2014. 

While that number was down 1% from the previous year, the United States continues to have the highest documented incarceration rate in the world. I am aware 

that most of today’s discussion will likely focus on the possible radicalization of 

Muslim inmates. However, I would encourage the committee to remember that limiting this committee’s oversight of radicalization to one religion ignores threats 

posed by violent extremists of all religious and ethnic backgrounds. 

Violent gangs organized along racial and ethnic lines exist throughout U.S. prisons. The National Gang Intelligence Center has assessed that major prison gangs 

pose a serious domestic threat, particularly National-level prison gangs that maintain substantial influence over street gangs.’’ 

In some cases, counting incarcerated members as well as affiliated individuals 

outside of correctional facilities, prison gangs can wield influence over thousands of 

individuals, both incarcerated and free, throughout the United States. It is clear 

that prison gangs often pose a security threat to prisoners and prison staff as well 

as the American public. 

Some prison gangs delve into radical or extremist ideologies, and in a number of 

instances, these ideologies are integral to fashioning cohesive group identities within 

prison walls. Several gangs in America’s prisons subscribe to white supremacist beliefs, views broadly shared by some domestic extremist groups such as the Aryan 

Nation, the National Socialist Party, and the National Alliance. 

For example, the Aryan Brotherhood is a particularly dangerous, National-level 

gang with approximately 15,000 members in and out of prison. In June 1998, James 

Byrd, a partially-disabled black man, was dragged to his death by 3 ex-convicts, 2 

of whom were members of the Aryan Brotherhood and the other who was seeking 

membership with this group. 

The presence of these types of intact and operational gang organizations coupled 

with the ability of their leaders to control and direct operations outside of prison 

from within the prison walls should not be ignored. The willingness of these groups 

to use violence, undermine order, and commit mayhem is not dependent on religious 

belief or political ideology nor do these groups limit their terrorist acts to prison 

walls. 

The use of prison as a platform for collaboration between both criminal and extremist gangs and groups poses a real and present threat to our homeland. 

Mr. KING. I thank the full committee Ranking Member. Bennie, 

I just want you to know that even though the emphasis—my emphasis today is on Islamist radicalization in prison, I agree with 

every word you said. We are in full agreement underneath, sir. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you. 

Mr. KING. Has to be done in prisons. 

Other Members of the committee are reminded that opening 

statements may be submitted for the record. 

We are pleased to have a distinguished panel of witnesses before 

us today on this important topic. 

Our first witness is a person who often does a lot of the work 

for us and doesn’t get the credit for it. I am glad to give you the 

credit today, Mr. Jerry Bjelopera, as a specialist in organized crime 

and terrorism with the Congressional Research Service. He has au-
6 

thored or coauthored more than 35 reports for Congress on homeland security and intelligence issues. 

Jerry has been a valued asset to the committee on Homeland Security and has assisted in a number of oversight and investigative 

projects, including prison radicalization, the DHS intelligence enterprise, and the Boston Marathon bombing investigation. Jerry, I 

do want to thank for your service and especially for what you do, 

you know, for this committee and have done for us over the years. 

With that, Jerry, you are recognized. 

STATEMENT OF JEROME P. BJELOPERA, SPECIALIST IN ORGANIZED CRIME AND TERRORISM, CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

Mr. BJELOPERA. Chairman King, Ranking Member Higgins, 

Ranking Member Thompson, and Members of subcommittee, my 

name is Jerry Bjelopera. Thank you for the opportunity to testify 

today on behalf of the Congressional Research Service. My testimony attempts to frame the issue of violent jihadist radicalization 

in U.S. prisons. 

Since 9/11, the vast majority of home-grown violent jihadists 

have not radicalized behind bars. Far more often the shift from 

law-abiding citizen to terrorist has involved other social environments and contexts. In fact, most home-grown violent jihadists 

radicalize via virtual or in-person interactions that can depend on 

powerful relationships such as face-to-face or on-line friendship 

networks or family ties. 

CRS has identified more than 120 post-9/11 home-grown violent 

jihadist conspiracies. Only one of these plots included participants 

who had clearly radicalized while serving time behind bars in the 

United States. This suggests that domestic prisons are not fertile 

grounds for the nurturing of future jihadist terrorists. However, 

two important caveats likely limit this observation. 

These two points suggest that U.S. correctional institutions cannot be dismissed as potential radicalization arenas. The first caveat. We don’t know the actual extent of jihadist influence in U.S. 

prisons. No solid publicly-available estimates exist either of the 

number of people imparting violent jihadist messages in U.S. prisons or their followers. Social interaction in prison might offer opportunities for convicts unfamiliar with terrorist world views to 

learn about them and to radicalize. 

Violent jihadists embrace intolerant interpretations of Islam, the 

fastest-growing faith in U.S. prisons. Some disaffected prisoners 

adopt versions of the religion that stray far from broadly-accepted 

sects and schools of thought. Some espouse forms of Islam that 

may incorporate radical viewpoints and violent rhetoric. 

Other extremist viewpoints such as white supremacy have taken 

root behind bars, suggesting that it may be possible for violent 

jihadists to circulate their messages in similar settings. A number 

of gangs in U.S. prisons recruit and organize around extremist but 

not jihadist ideologies. The beliefs that such gangs have adopted 

helped them to indoctrinate new members. However, these gangs 

tend not to use their idealogical systems to justify terrorist acts. 

Rather, groups like white supremacist gangs focus on maintaining 
7 

their own cohesion and profiting from crimes like drug trafficking 

while incarcerated. 

The second caveat. It is unclear whether incarceration in U.S. 

prisons fosters deeper commitment to radical violence among people already jailed on terrorist charges. We will likely learn more 

about this in coming years. In the next 2 decades, scores of convicted and incarcerated home-grown violent jihadists are to be released from U.S. prisons, potentially making this issue especially 

salient. 

Until recently, relatively few home-grown jihadists have been released from U.S. correctional facilities, offering us little insight into 

the effect of prison on such persons. Though, of this small pool of 

released convicts, none has returned to terrorist plotting, according 

to open sources. This suggests at least several questions. How successfully will convicts due for release after 2015 reintegrate into 

life outside of prison? How might they influence the home-grown 

threat landscape? Will any of these ex-convicts foster new plots? 

Will any serve as role models for future terrorists? 

Based on CRS research, since 9/11 more than 250 people have 

been convicted for their involvement in home-grown violent jihadist 

plots. CRS was able to find information regarding the sentences of 

151 home-grown violent jihadists. Of the 151, 132 had identifiable 

release dates, and just over 100 will be released after 2015. 

To summarize, only 1 post-9/11 home-grown jihadist terrorist 

plot has involved people who clearly radicalized behind bars. This 

may imply that jihadist extremism is not a problem in U.S. correctional facilities; however, arguably, we cannot dismiss this issue. 

We haven’t determined the extent of jihadist influence in U.S. 

prisons. We also need to better understand whether confinement in 

U.S. jails fosters deeper commitment to radical violence among convicted terrorists. Further work on these issues will help us to better understand the security challenges that radicalization in U.S. 

prisons may pose. I thank the subcommittee again for this opportunity to testify and look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bjelopera follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JEROME P. BJELOPERA

OCTOBER 28, 2015 

OVERVIEW

Chairman King, Ranking Member Higgins, and Members of the committee, my 

name is Jerry Bjelopera. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on behalf 

of the Congressional Research Service. My testimony attempts to frame the issue 

of violent jihadist radicalization in U.S. prisons and briefly examines whether Federal efforts to counter violent extremism extend to U.S. prisoners. 

Since the attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11), the vast majority of home-grown 

violent jihadists have not radicalized in U.S. prisons. Far more often, the shift from 

law-abiding citizen to terrorist has involved other social environments and contexts—both virtual and real. Domestic prisons do not appear to create many violent 

extremists out of non-terrorist criminals, according to open-source information. 

Two important caveats temper this point and suggest that U.S. correctional institutions cannot be completely dismissed as potential radicalization arenas. • We do not know the actual extent of jihadist influence in U.S. prisons.—No solid 

estimates exist either of the number of people preaching violent jihadist messages in State and Federal prisons or their followers. Non-jihadist extremist 

movements such as white supremacy have taken root behind bars, suggesting 

that it may be possible for violent jihadists to propagate their messages in the 

same settings. 
8 

1Since 9/11, more than 250 people have been convicted for their involvement in home-grown 

violent jihadist plots. 2Department of Justice, ‘‘Man Who Formed Terrorist Group that Plotted Attacks on Military 

and Jewish Facilities Sentenced to 16 Years in Federal Prison,’’ March 6, 2009, http:// 

losangeles.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel09/la030609ausa.htm; Department of Justice, ‘‘Man Involved in Domestic Terrorism Plot Targeting Military and Jewish Facilities Sentenced to 22 

Years,’’ July 23, 2008, http://losangeles.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel08/la062308usa.htm; Department of Justice, ‘‘Second Man Involved in Domestic Terrorism Plot Targeting Military, Jewish Facilities Sentenced to Prison,’’ July 21, 2008, http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2008/July/ 

08-nsd-634.html; Department of Justice, ‘‘Four Men Indicted on Terrorism Charges,’’ August 31, 

2005, http://www.dodig.mil/IGInformation/IGInformationReleases/fourmenl090105.pdf. 3The group has also been known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) Islamic 

State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham (ISIS), and Daesh among 

other names. 4 Adam Goldman, ‘‘An American Family Saved Their Son from Joining the Islamic State. Now 

He Might Go to Prison,’’ Washington Post, September 6, 2015, https:// 

www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/an-american-family-saved-their-son-fromjoining-the-islamic-state-now-he-might-go-to-prison/2015/09/06/2d3d0f48-44ef-11e5-8ab4- 

c73967a143d3lstory.html; United States v. Asher Abid Khan, Criminal Complaint, United 

States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, May 25, 2015. 

• Whether incarceration in U.S. prisons fosters deeper commitment to radical violence among convicted terrorists remains unclear.1—In the next 2 decades, 

scores of convicted and incarcerated home-grown violent jihadists are to be released from U.S. prisons potentially making this issue especially salient. 

Key Terms 

Radicalization.—The process of acquiring and holding radical, extremist, or 

jihadist beliefs. A radicalized individual becomes a terrorist when he or she commits 

a crime on the basis of such beliefs. 

Home-grown.—Terrorist activity perpetrated within the United States or abroad 

by American citizens, lawful permanent residents, or visitors radicalized largely 

within the United States. 

Violent Jihadists.—Radicalized individuals using Islam as an ideological and/or 

religious justification for their belief in the establishment of a caliphate—a jurisdiction governed by a Muslim civil and religious leader known as a caliph—via violent 

means. 

Plots.—Schemes by home-grown individuals or groups to either join terrorist organizations abroad or to commit violent attacks at home or abroad. 

AMERICAN PRISONS HAVE PRODUCED ALMOST NO POST-9/11 JIHADIST TERRORISTS

According to CRS analysis of home-grown violent jihadist activity since 9/11, such 

plots have nearly always featured people who radicalized outside of prison. Out of 

approximately 120 conspiracies, CRS has found 1 that included participants who 

had clearly radicalized while incarcerated in the United States. 

• Kevin James, Levar Washington, Gregory Patterson, and Hammad Samana 

were arrested in August 2005 for plotting to attack targets in the Los Angeles, 

CA area, including synagogues, the Israeli Consulate, Los Angeles International 

Airport (LAX), U.S. military recruiting offices, and military bases. In 1997, 

James founded a violent jihadist movement he named Jamiyyat Ul-Islam IsSaheeh (JIS or the ‘‘Authentic Assembly of God’’) in the California State prison 

system. James met Washington behind bars in 2004 and recruited him into JIS. 

After his release, Washington enlisted Patterson, an employee at LAX, and 

Samana at the Jamaat-E-Masijudal mosque in Inglewood, CA, where they all 

worshipped.2

Most home-grown violent jihadists radicalize via virtual or in-person interactions 

that can depend on powerful contexts such as real or on-line friendship networks 

and family relationships. These usually do not involve the levels of scrutiny or supervision by authority figures as do interpersonal dealings in prison. 

• In 2013 and 2014, Asher Abid Khan conspired with a friend to travel to Syria 

and join the terrorist organization known as the Islamic State (IS).3 Khan, a 

20-year-old Houston, TX resident, and his friend radicalized together. For example, they watched violent jihadist videos on-line. The duo exchanged IS-inspired 

messages and imagery via social media platforms such as Facebook and 

Instagram. They also used Facebook to contact an IS foreign terrorist fighter 

facilitator based in Turkey. Khan’s friend eventually made it to Syria and joined 

the Islamic State.4

• In 2014, Heather Elizabeth Coffman, a 29-year-old Glen Allen, VA resident, attempted to assist others to join the Islamic State. Coffman relied on Facebook 
9 

5Department of Justice Press Release, ‘‘Glen Allen Woman Pleads Guilty to Making a False 

Statement Involving International Terrorism,’’ February 2, 2015; Danielle Haynes, ‘‘Virginia 

Woman Arrested for Allegedly Offering to Help Islamic State,’’ United Press International, November 17, 2014. United States v. Heather Elizabeth Coffman, Criminal Complaint, United 

States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, November 14, 2014. 6See Mark S. Hamm, The Spectacular Few: Prisoner Radicalization and the Evolving Terrorist Threat (New York: New York University Press, 2013), Hereafter: Hamm, The Spectacular 

Few. See also Mark S. Hamm, ‘‘Terrorist Recruitment in American Correctional Institutions: An 

Exploratory Study of Non-Traditional Faith Groups,’’ December 2007, p. 112, http:// 

www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/220957.pdf. Hereafter: Hamm, ‘‘Terrorist Recruitment.’’ See 

also ‘‘U.S. Congress, House Homeland Security Committee, Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing, and Terrorism Risk Assessment, Written Statement of Janice Fedarcyk, fmr. 

Special Agent in Charge, Counterterrorism Division, Los Angeles Field Office, Federal Bureau 

of Investigation, ‘Radicalization, Information Sharing, and Community Outreach: Protecting the 

Homeland from Homegrown Terror,’ ’’ 110th Cong., 1st sess., April 5, 2007, p. 18; George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute (HSPI) and The University of Virginia 

Critical Incident Analysis Group (CIAG), ‘‘Out of the Shadows: Getting Ahead of Prisoner 

Radicalization,’’ HSPI and CIAG, Washington, DC, September 2006, http:// 

www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/ciag/publications/outloflthelshadows.pdf. 7 Hamm, The Spectacular Few; Peter R. Neumann, Prisons and Terrorism: Radicalisation and 

De-radicalisation in 15 Countries, International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence, London, 2010, p. 2, http://www.icsr.info/publications/papers/ 

1277699166PrisonsandTerrorismRadicalisationandDeradicalisationin15Countries.pdf. Greg 

Hannah, Lindsay Clutterbuck, and Jennifer Rubin, Radicalization or Rehabilitation: Understanding the Challenges of Extremist and Radicalized Prisoners, RAND Europe, Cambridge, 

United Kingdom, 2008, p. 10, http://www.rand.org/pubs/technicallreports/2008/ 

RANDlTR571.pdf. 8 Hamm, The Spectacular Few, pp. 43–44. According to one study, just State and Federal institutions held ‘‘an estimated 1,574,700 prisoners on December 31, 2013, an increase of 4,300 prisoners from year-end 2012.’’ This figure peaked in 2009 at 1,615,500. When factoring in local jails 

as well, the number of inmates for 2012 was 2,231,400 and 2,220,300 for 2013. See E. Ann Carson, ‘‘Prisoners in 2013,’’ U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, (September 30, 2014); Lauren E. Glaze and Danielle Kaeble, U.S. Department 

of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, ‘‘Correctional Populations in 

the United States, 2013’’ (December 2014). 9 Hamm, ‘‘Terrorist Recruitment,’’ pp. 112, 113. 

postings as she radicalized and attempted to help a man she described as her 

husband travel to Syria to link up with the terrorist group.5

YET, CONCERNS ABOUT JAILHOUSE JIHADISM PERSIST

The extent of violent jihadist radicalization behind bars is unknown. American 

prisons might offer venues for such activity, where neophytes can be radicalized or 

recruited, even though only a small percentage of such individuals may eventually 

turn to terrorism.6 Also, we do not fully understand the effect of prison time on convicted terrorists who came to prison already radicalized. 

In its many peaceful mainstream forms, Islam is the fastest-growing faith behind 

bars in the United States. However, some disaffected prisoners adopt versions of the 

religion that stray far from broadly-accepted sects and schools of thought, versions 

that may incorporate radical viewpoints and violent rhetoric. One such non-traditional jailhouse variant is commonly known as ‘‘prison Islam.’’ Prison Islam selectively uses the Quran and other Islamic texts in a ‘‘cut-and-paste’’ ideological approach to reinforce gang values and may encourage violence.7

Islam and Conversion Behind Bars 

Islam has been described as the fastest-growing religion among North American 

prisoners, with one estimate suggesting that ‘‘30,000 or perhaps as many as 40,000’’ 

prisoners convert every year.8 Prison converts do not necessarily adopt the tenets 

of mainstream major religions. Some consider non-traditional, potentially radical, 

quasi-religious outlooks instead. At least two broad motivations influence potential 

converts—a search for meaning/identity (which can translate into defiance of prison 

authorities) and a need for physical protection from other inmates. Religious conversion plays a varied part in prison life. Cynical prisoners may use conversion to demonstrate good behavior to prison officials, thereby potentially improving their conditions. For others, religious conversion can offer a powerful alternative to harmful 

or destructive behavior behind bars and may reduce the likelihood that they will 

commit future offenses in jail or once released.9

Other Radicals in Prison 

While the scope of jihadist radicalization in U.S. correctional facilities is unclear, 

a number of large gangs in U.S. prisons recruit and organize around other extremist 

ideologies. The existence of such gangs suggests that extremist ideologies can find 
10 

10 Joshua D. Freilich, Steven M. Chermak, and David Caspi, ‘‘Critical Events in the Life Trajectories of Domestic Extremist White Supremacist Groups,’’ Criminology and Public Policy, vol. 

8, no. 3 (August 2009), p. 508; David Holthouse, ‘‘Smashing the Shamrock,’’ Intelligence Report, 

Southern Poverty Law Center, Issue 119, (Fall 2005), http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/ 

intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2005/fall/smashing-the-shamrock?page=0,1. Hereafter: 

Holthouse, ‘‘Smashing.’’ Camille Jackson, ‘‘Nazi Low Riders,’’ Intelligence Report, Southern Poverty Law Center, Issue 114, (Summer 2004), http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/ 

intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2004/summer/nazi-low-riders. 11Such views are broadly shared by domestic extremist groups such as the National Socialist 

Party and racist skinheads. 12Department of Justice, ‘‘Prison Gangs and Photos,’’ May 11, 2015, http://www.justice.gov/ 

criminal-ocgs/gallery/prison-gangs; ‘‘Member of Aryan Brotherhood Booked in Slidell,’’ Associated Press State and Local Wire, October 6, 2009; Holthouse, ‘‘Smashing.’’ 13 Ibid. See also National Drug Intelligence Center. Attorney General’s Report to Congress on 

the Growth of Violent Street Gangs in Suburban Areas, (April 2008), Appendix B. Pete Simi, 

Lowell Smith, and Ann M.S. Reeser, ‘‘From Punk Kids to Public Enemy Number One,’’ Deviant 

Behavior, vol. 29, no. 8 (2008), pp. 753–774. 14For example, see Mark Binelli, ‘‘Inside America’s Toughest Federal Prison,’’ New York 

Times Magazine, March 26, 2015. 

root in American prisons. The beliefs that some prison gangs have adopted help 

them to radicalize new members. However, these gangs tend not to use their ideological systems to justify terrorist acts. Rather, they focus on profitable criminal enterprises such as drug trafficking.10 White supremacist prison gangs illustrate this. 

White supremacist beliefs form the key tenets binding several gangs in U.S. prisons. Extremists of this persuasion hold that whites: (1) Are superior to all other racial groups, (2) have experienced decline at the hands of other races, and (3) require 

extreme measures to return them to social and political preeminence.11

• The Aryan Brotherhood, a National-level prison gang with approximately 

15,000 members in and out of custody, has factions within facilities managed 

by the California Department of Corrections and the Federal Bureau of Prisons.12

• The Nazi Low Riders, a regional-level gang with a membership estimated between 800 and 1,000, exists in correctional facilities on the West Coast and in 

the Southwest.13

How Have Incarcerated Jihadists Fared in Prison? 

Until recently few home-grown violent jihadists have been released from U.S. correctional facilities, offering little insight into the effect of prison time on such persons. Though, of this small pool of released convicts, none have returned to terrorist 

plotting, according to open sources. In the next 20 years, the United States is to 

release scores of similar individuals. It is unknown how such people will handle 

their exits from penal institutions. How successfully they reintegrate into life outside of prison might influence the home-grown violent jihadist threat landscape. 

Will a significant portion of these released jihadists foster new plots? Will any serve 

as role models for future terrorists? Since 9/11, more than 250 people have been convicted for their involvement in home-grown violent jihadist plots. Approximate release dates for 132 people imprisoned for such activity are publicly available and 

depicted in Figure 1 below. CRS was able to find information regarding the sentences of 151 home-grown violent jihadists arrested for either their involvement in 

terrorist attacks for plotting such attacks. Of the 151 home-grown violent jihadists: 

• 132 had identifiable release dates. (The earliest possible release date was considered, where appropriate.) 

• Of the 132 with identifiable release dates, 5 were incarcerated at the State 

level. The rest (127) were held in Federal (non-military) correctional facilities. 

• 16 received life sentences. 

• 3 received death sentences. Two of these individuals were tried as U.S. soldiers 

in military courts and await their executions in military custody. 

• 11 are housed in the U.S. Bureau of Prisons Administrative Maximum Security 

(ADX) facility, in Florence, CO. Commonly referred to as ADX Florence, Florence ADMAX, or the Alcatraz of the Rockies, this prison is reputedly the most 

secure prison facility in the United States.14
11 

15 Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States, August 2011, 

p. 1. Hereinafter: Empowering Local Partners. 16Strategic Implementation Plan for Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism 

in the United States, December 2011, p. 13. 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid., p. 14. 

TO WHAT DEGREE DO FEDERAL EFFORTS TO COUNTER VIOLENT EXTREMISM EXTEND TO

U.S. PRISONERS?

Based on public sources, it is difficult to determine how much of the Obama administration’s program to thwart terrorist radicalization focuses on Federal, State, 

or local prisons.15 The plan, dubbed ‘‘countering violent extremism’’ (CVE), was announced in 2011. When describing existing CVE efforts in 2011, the administration 

noted that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Bureau of Prisons (BOP), and the National Counterterrorism 

Center (NCTC) had collaborated to evaluate how State-level prisons identified 

radicalization among inmates and shared such information with law enforcement 

partners.16 The administration’s program for further work on CVE included almost 

50 ‘‘future activities and efforts’’ for numerous Federal agencies.17 One of these focused on prison radicalization, suggesting that DHS, FBI, BOP, and NCTC continue 

existing collaboration to: • Improve awareness of the risk of violent extremism in correctional systems; • Enhance screening of new inmates to detect individuals associated with violent 

extremist organizations; • Improve detection of recruitment efforts within the correctional environment; 

and • Increase information sharing, as appropriate, with Federal, State, and local law 

enforcement about inmates who may have adopted violent extremist beliefs and 

are being released.18

It is unclear what progress has been made in these efforts. 

I thank the subcommittee again for this opportunity to testify and look forward 

to your questions. 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Mr. Bjelopera, for your testimony. 
12 

Our next witness, Mr. Tony Parker, is the assistant commissioner of prisons with the Tennessee Department of Corrections. 

Commissioner Parker has a 32-year record in the corrections field, 

and is currently responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operations of the correctional institutions in Tennessee. 

In addition, in 2013, Commissioner Parker completed the Naval 

post-graduate school in Monterey, California, and wrote a thesis 

entitled, ‘‘Establishing a Deradicalization/Disengagement Model for 

America’s Correctional Facilities: Recommendations for Countering 

Prison Radicalization.’’ Now, the staff was not able to come up with 

simultaneous translators for today, so Mr. Parker and I have 

agreed not to comment on each other’s accents and try to understand our dialects as closely as possible. Thank you, Commissioner. 

You’re recognized. 

STATEMENT OF TONY C. PARKER, ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER, 

DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTION, STATE OF TENNESSEE 

Mr. PARKER. Thank you, Chairman. Chairman King, Ranking 

Members Thompson and Higgins, and Members of this subcommittee, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to testify 

before you today. 

I would also like to express my appreciation to the men and 

women who work inside America’s jails and prisons. It is truly an 

honor to testify at this hearing and to share my experiences about 

the correctional environment as well as my prison radicalization research. 

My name is Tony Parker, and I serve as the assistant commissioner of prisons for the Tennessee Department of Correction. Prison radicalization has been identified as a significant threat to 

America’s homeland security. Currently, the United States has no 

prison deradicalization program. When considering the inmate population within the Federal Bureau of Prison who have a terrorism 

nexus and the fact that 95 percent of America’s inmate population 

will return to our communities, it is evident we need to do something proactively to address prison radicalization. 

In 2011, I had the opportunity to participate in the master’s degree program at the Naval Postgraduate School, Center for Homeland Defense and Security in Monterey, California. I would like to 

thank Congress and FEMA for funding a program grounded in providing future homeland security leaders with the analytical tools to 

establish future policy. 

My research examined the literature about environmental factors 

within prisons that promote radicalization. I also conducted a comparative analysis of deradicalization programs used in Singapore 

and Saudi Arabia. That research provides the basis for my recommendations regarding a U.S. prison deradicalization model, a 

model that addresses both prison environmental factors as well as 

providing recommendations for a rehabilitative initiative targeted 

toward reentry. 

Prison radicalization has left its footprint on society through the 

actions of individuals like Kevin James, Jose Padilla, and Michael 

Finton. The American prison system has many of the characteristics that promote radicalization. Prisons are isolated environments. 
13 

In such an environment, inmates become easy targets for radical 

extremists searching for individuals to join their cause. 

The most effective correctional system incorporates productive rehabilitative programs with sound security policies. Corrections’ 

long-term strategy, security, is the foundation of sound correctional 

policy, although that strategy may have become a liability. We 

have failed to recognize the need to change the strategy to an approach that includes both security and a robust rehabilitative initiative. I would argue you cannot have one without the other. 

Effective monitoring and control of prison groups, especially security threat groups, are essential to reducing the vulnerability of 

prison radicalization. The radicalization message can enter the correctional environment through numerous avenues such as 

radicalized inmates, unvetted radical chaplains, extremist propaganda labeled as religious material, illegal cell phones, and social 

media sites. Rigorous vetting and monitoring of prison chaplains 

and religious volunteers must be a standard. 

Understanding the complexities of a captive society like prison 

populations is complicated. My 32 years of correctional experience 

has helped me recognize how fragile this environment can be, but 

additional social science research would be beneficial in expanding 

the knowledge base regarding prison radicalization. Providing adequate staff training and developing intelligence-sharing networks 

with criminal justice partners are critical in fighting prison 

radicalization. 

The correctional intelligence initiative developed by the Federal 

Bureau of Investigation and the National Joint Terrorism Task 

Force provides a good framework that promotes intelligence gathering related to terrorism and prison radicalization from United 

States correctional agencies. I argue that although the framework 

is structurally sound, there remains a significant training element 

that must be accomplished. 

The prison deradicalization programs of Singapore and Saudi 

Arabia were based on the applicable laws and cultural considerations of both countries. I recognize the profound differences in 

both of these countries, especially when compared to our Nation’s 

civil liberties and due process protections. Even so, the value of 

learning from successful deradicalization programs of other countries should not be minimized. 

Although the deradicalization programs of Singapore and Saudi 

Arabia were designed to counter radicalization within their respective borders, unique elements of these programs offer possible solutions to prison radicalization in the United States that should be 

evaluated through a filter that maintains the Constitutional protections afforded to U.S. prisoners. 

The 9/11 Commission report identified failure of imagination as 

America’s most glaring failure leading to the attacks of September 

11. According to the report, we failed to understand and consider 

the gravity of the threat. May we never underestimate the threat 

of prison radicalization and the importance of reentry protocols for 

the convicted terrorist. 

Without a multi-disciplinary approach that targets prison 

radicalization and understands the reentry issues that surround 

the inmates with a terrorism nexus, America will always be react-
14 

1 House Committee on Homeland Security, Background Information on Prominent Post-9/11 

U.S. Prison Radicalization Cases (Washington, DC: Committee on Oversight and Government 

Affairs, 2011). 

ing to prison radicalization. Our policy and our strategy must be 

proactive. Correctional policymakers must be cognizant of the environmental factors that promote prison radicalization and promote 

policy to mitigate the threat. Failing to provide aggressive treatment and program options to counter prison radicalization leads to 

the prison gates open to releasing potentially radicalized individuals back into our communities. 

I would ask the subcommittee to support this model and support 

additional social science research designed to mitigate the factors 

of contributing to prison radicalization. Again, I thank you for allowing me to address this distinguished committee. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Parker follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF TONY C. PARKER

OCTOBER 28, 2015 

Chairman King, Ranking Members Thompson and Higgins, and Members of this 

subcommittee, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to testify before you 

today. I would also like to express my appreciation to the men and women who work 

inside America’s jails and prisons. It is truly an honor to testify at this hearing and 

share my experiences about the correctional environment as well as my prison 

radicalization research. 

My name is Tony Parker and I serve as the assistant commissioner of prisons for 

the Tennessee Department of Corrections (TDOC). 

Prison radicalization has been identified as a significant threat to America’s 

homeland security. Currently, the United States has no prison deradicalization program. When considering the inmate population housed within the Federal Bureau 

of Prisons who have a terrorism nexus, and the fact that 95 percent of America’s 

inmate population will return to our communities, it is evident we need to do something proactively to address prison radicalization. 

In 2011, I had the opportunity to participate in a Master’s Degree Program at the 

Naval Postgraduate School—Center for Homeland Defense and Security in Monterey, California. I would like to thank Congress and FEMA for funding a program 

grounded in providing future homeland security leaders with the analytical tools to 

establish future policy. 

My research examined the literature about environmental factors within prisons 

that promote radicalization. I also conducted a comparative analysis of 

deradicalization programs used in Singapore and Saudi Arabia. That research provides the basis for my recommendations about a U.S. prison deradicalization model. 

A model that addresses both prison environmental factors as well as providing recommendations for a rehabilitative initiative targeted toward reentry. 

Prison radicalization has left its footprint on society through the actions of individuals like Kevin James, Jose Padilla, and Michael Finton.1 The American prison 

system has many of the characteristics that promote radicalization. Prisons are isolated environments. In such an environment, inmates become easy targets for radical extremists searching for individuals to join their cause. 

The most effective correctional system incorporates productive rehabilitative programs with sound security policies. Correction’s long-term strategy—security—is the 

foundation of sound correctional policy, although; that strategy may have become a 

‘‘liability.’’ We have failed to recognize the need to change the strategy to an approach that includes both security and a robust rehabilitative initiative. You cannot 

have one without the other. 

Effective monitoring and control of prison groups, especially security threat 

groups, are essential to reducing the vulnerability for prison radicalization. 

The radicalization message can enter the correctional environment through numerous avenues such as radicalized inmates, unvetted radical chaplains, extremist 

propaganda labeled as religious material, illegal cell phones, and social media sites. 

Rigorous vetting and monitoring of prison chaplains and religious volunteers must 

be a standard. 
15 

Understanding the complexities of a captive society like prison populations is complicated. My 32 years of correctional experience have helped me recognize how fragile this environment can be, but additional social science research would be beneficial in expanding the knowledge base regarding prison radicalization. 

Providing adequate staff training and developing intelligence-sharing networks 

with criminal justice partners are critical in fighting prison radicalization. The Correctional Intelligence Initiative, developed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation 

(FBI) and the National Joint Terrorism Task Force (NJTTF), provides a good framework that promotes intelligence gathering, related to terrorism and prisoner 

radicalization, from United States correctional agencies. I argue that although the 

framework is structurally sound, there remains a significant training element that 

must be accomplished. 

The prison deradicalization programs of Singapore and Saudi Arabia were based 

on the applicable laws and cultural considerations of both countries. I recognize the 

profound differences of both of those countries, especially when compared to our Nation’s civil liberties and due process protections. 

Even so, the value of learning from the successful deradicalization programs of 

other countries should not be minimized. Although the deradicalization programs of 

Singapore and Saudi Arabia were designed to counter radicalization within their respective borders, unique elements of these programs offer possible solutions to prison radicalization in the United States that should be evaluated through a filter that 

maintains the constitutional protections afforded to U.S. prisoners. 

The 9/11 Commission Report identified ‘‘Failure of Imagination’’ as America’s 

most glaring failure leading to the attacks of September 11. According to the Report, 

we failed to understand and consider the gravity of the threat. May we never underestimate the threat of prison radicalization and the importance of reentry protocols 

for convicted terrorist. 

Without a multidisciplinary approach that targets prison radicalization and understands the reentry issues that surround the inmate with a terrorism nexus, 

America will always be reacting to prison radicalization. Our policy and our strategy 

must be proactive. Correctional policymakers must be cognizant of the environmental factors that promote prison radicalization and promote policy to mitigate the 

threat. Failing to provide aggressive treatment and program options to counteract 

prison radicalization leaves the prison gates open to releasing potentially radicalized 

individuals back into our neighborhoods. 

I would ask the subcommittee to support this model and support additional social 

science research designed to mitigate the factors contributing to prison 

radicalization. 

Again, I thank you for allowing me to address this distinguished committee. 

ATTACHMENT.—ESTABLISHING A DERADICALIZATION/DISENGAGEMENT MODEL FOR

AMERICA’S CORRECTIONAL FACILITIES: RECOMMENDATIONS FOR COUNTERING PRISON RADICALIZATION

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR A U.S. PRISON DERADICALIZATION MODEL 

Suggested Proactive Measures for the Correctional Environment Aimed at Reducing the 

Vulnerability of Prison Radicalization 

Suggested Proactive Measures That Provide 

Individual Treatment Options for the 

Radicalized Inmate 

1. Productive Rehabilitation and Effective Security: The Dual Strategy (effective rehabilitation enhances security).1. The establishment of a voluntary cognitive-based counseling program for 

inmates who are incarcerated for terrorism-related crimes or inmates who 

exhibit violent ideological expressions. 

2. Effective Monitoring and Control of 

Prison Groups.

2. Inmates who participate in voluntary 

deradicalization programs should be 

afforded the same incentives related to 

sentence credit reductions,1 vocational/ 

educational opportunities as well as 

aftercare programs that support their 

chances for successful reentry and reduce the chances of further extremist 

activity. 
16 

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR A U.S. PRISON DERADICALIZATION MODEL— 

Continued 

Suggested Proactive Measures for the Correctional Environment Aimed at Reducing the 

Vulnerability of Prison Radicalization 

Suggested Proactive Measures That Provide 

Individual Treatment Options for the 

Radicalized Inmate 

3. Rigorous Vetting and Monitoring of 

Prison Chaplains and Religious Volunteers.

3. U.S. Corrections should invest in an 

intensive effort to recruit properly-vetted and trained volunteers, chaplains, 

and psychological professionals that 

would be utilized in an established 

counseling program as recommended 

in recommendation 1. 

4. Encourage Positive Inmate/Family Social Interaction and Communication.4. Develop and implement a vigorous 

aftercare initiative that ensures postincarceration monitoring/supervision, 

counseling and social service assistance upon successful completion of the 

deradicalization program. 

5. Correctional Policy Should Encourage 

Social Research Within Prisons.

6. Provide Adequate Staff Training and 

Develop Intelligence-Sharing Networks.

1Sentence credit reductions would be considered the reduction of days from the offender’s 

total sentence for satisfactorily participating in a program or job as well as the reduction of 

days from the sentence for good behavior. 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Commissioner Parker. 

Our next witness, Mr. Brian Levin, is a professor within the Department of Criminal Justice and the director of the Center for the 

Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University in San 

Bernardino. Professor Levin is the author, coauthor, and editor of 

a number of books, articles, and studies on extremism and hate 

crime. He has testified previously before Congress and has appeared on multiple National news outlets. 

Prior to joining academia, Professor Levin earned a law degree 

from Stanford, and I must say I am particularly proud of the fact 

that you served as a New York City police officer and is then third 

generation NYPD. 

So thank you for your service and thank you for your testimony 

today, Professor. I just wish you were back on Long island. That 

is all. Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF BRIAN H. LEVIN, PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT 

OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE, AND DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR STUDY 

OF HATE AND EXTREMISM, CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, 

SAN BERNARDINO 

Mr. LEVIN. Good morning, Chairman King. Mets in 6. Ranking 

Member—— 

Mr. KING. We can end the hearing right there. I am with you. 

Here we go. 

Mr. LEVIN. The last time I went to a World Series was 1986. 

Good morning, Chairman King, Ranking Members Thompson and 

Higgins, and Members of the committee. Thank you so very much 

for the privilege of speaking before you, and my son Gabriel, a Boy 

Scout, today, on behalf of the nonpartisan Center for the Study of 

Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. 
17 

My name is Professor Brian Levin, and for over 15 years I have 

served as director of our center where, as you have heard, I teach 

in the criminal justice department and in our interdisciplinary National security studies program. I also write front-page analysis in 

National security for the Huffington Post, including today, and like 

you, I am very proud to be part of an NYPD family—in my case, 

three generations. I think that is what I am most honored to be 

associated with. 

My testimony today, however, will address three basic subjects. 

First, I will address the overall homeland terrorist threat, with 

particular emphasis on the two most prominent ones coming from 

violent Salafist jihadists and far-right-wing extremists. Second, I 

will discuss issues relating to these movements in the context of 

prisons and post-release activities. Lastly, I will address issues relating to countering violent extremism, CVE, programs in the contents of efficacy, as well as civil rights and civil liberties concerns. 

The United States faces multiple severe risk factors and a diverse set of emerging contemporary actors in the area of mass terrorism, with shots on goal increasingly coming from across both the 

idealogical and competency spectrum. According to the global terrorism database, GTD, at the University of Maryland’s START program, total terror attacks in the United States have increased from 

9 in 2011 to 19 in 2014, and from no fatalities in 2011, to 18 last 

year. 

The GTD data indicates that since 9/11, at least 66 attacks came 

from right-wing extremists versus about 25 from Muslim ones. The 

next deadly mass attack, assassination, or crippling infrastructure 

sabotage may not necessarily come from extremist movements that 

have had more terrorist attacks or plots before, or even more or 

better-trained adherence. Rather, the next terrorist attack will simply come from whoever is proximate, operational, and undetected 

tomorrow, and we cannot mechanistically presume from the totality 

of these threats, solely revolve around any single movement alone, 

including the two most prominent ones, violent Salafist jihadists 

and far-right extremists. 

In today’s splintered socio-political landscape, increasingly sophisticated organized groups also share the stage with angry, unstable, or disenchanted loners along with smaller informal groups. 

My counsel to the House Judiciary Committee almost 20 years ago 

is even more valid today. Leaderless resistance calls for small autonomous bands of terrorists to further the overall goals of their 

movement by committing random acts of terror against public institutions, infrastructure targets, and innocent citizens will continue. 

While there are significant qualitative and quantitative factors 

that plausibly skew our center’s current overall mass terror threat 

assessment toward violent Salafist Jihadists, available data does 

not yet indicate that their potency outside of prisons has sparked 

significant internal activity or wave of recidivism. While there have 

been two known Salafist jihadist prison-related plots at different 

ends of the operational landscape over the last decade and some 

really disturbing incidents involving bigoted literature and poorlyvetted clerics, far-right extremists, often operating as criminal syndicates, along with other ethnic-based prison gangs have been far 

more prominent and violent within correctional settings. 
18 

While violent Salafist jihadists have achieved extensive notoriety 

over recent years, they are but a tiny sliver of the estimated 2.7 

million law-abiding American Muslims. Recent statements by FBI 

officials tentatively suggest violent Salafist jihadists are possibly 

plateauing at the top of an evolving terrorism threat matrix, with 

900 open investigations, and 6 foreign-fighter Middle East forays a 

month, down from a previous sustained level of 9 monthly departures. 

The catalytic civil wars in Syria and Iraq, a well-organized overseas ISIS presence, and the most sophisticated use of the internet 

ever for terrorist recruitment and training is indeed the most profound, though hardly the only, threat to our National security. 

One of the things that we are seeing is that context is critical. 

With respect to prison and post-release issues, we may very well 

be in the eye of a small incarceration storm with only about 200 

internal security and terrorism Federal prosecutions last year, compared to over 1,200 in 2002. The 2014 figures show a one-third decline in cases from 5 years ago and a 75 percent decline from the 

previous 10 years, according to the Syracuse University-based 

Transactional Record Access Clearinghouse. 

As Mr. Bjelopera points out, many of those convicted during the 

height of the Federal prosecution efforts over the last decade have 

been or will be released soon, while new offenders may be ensnared 

in the foreseeable future, as Federal authorities ramp up counterterrorism investigations related to recruitment efforts of ISIS and 

related entities. These numbers, however, represent a mere fraction of the 1.5 million prisoners incarcerated Nationally and of the 

211,000 incarcerated in the Federal system. 

Just because my time is running over, I am just going to close 

with a couple of observations. Far-right-wing extremists, for instance, groups like Aryan Brotherhood, 15,000 to 20,000; Nazi Low 

Riders, maybe 1,000 or so; Public Enemy Number 1, 800 to 1,200, 

these are all significant prison presence relating to radicalism on 

another end of the spectrum. They, however, often operate as 

criminal syndicates. 

Interestingly enough, the first post-9/11 operational jihadist 

Salafist plot came from a prison. So simply, while we have not seen 

prisons be a fertile breeding ground yet, that does not mean in the 

future that won’t change because we are in a very fluid environment, and I would be more than happy to answer questions related 

to that in the Q and A section. However, what I must say, though, 

we must be very careful with respect to civil rights and civil liberties concerns. 

As the Supreme Court has stated, the Constitution does not stop 

at prison walls. While we very well may have to engage in a variety of rehabilitative and monitoring programs, it is crucial that 

they apply across the board to the vast threat because we don’t 

want to focus just on one section of the ice, when the shot on goal 

tomorrow might come from another. I again want to thank you so 

much for the privilege of testifying here before you and am honored 

to do so. 

Let me just say, I am so moved by the bipartisanship that your 

committee has shown, and I think the words of Senator Robert 

Kennedy speak well here. ‘‘Let us work together towards this noble 
19 

effort against terrorism to dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks 

wrote so many years ago, ‘to tame the savages of man and make 

gentle the life of this world.’ Let us dedicate ourselves to that and 

say a prayer for our country and for our people,’’ and if I may, for 

this wonderful committee. Thank you so much for inviting me 

today. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Levin follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF BRIAN H. LEVIN

OCTOBER 28, 2015 

INTRODUCTION

Good morning Chairman King, Ranking Members Thompson and Higgins, and 

Members of the committee. Thank you so very much for the privilege of speaking 

before you, and my son Gabriel, today on behalf of the nonpartisan Center for the 

Study of Hate and Extremism, at California State University, San Bernardino. 

My name is Professor Brian Levin and for over 15 years I have served as director 

of our Center at the University, where I teach in the Department of Criminal Justice, and in our interdisciplinary National Security Studies Program. I also write 

front-page analysis on National security for the Huffington Post, and am 1 of 3 generations of officers in my family who have had the honor of serving in the NYPD. 

I am also a graduate of Stanford Law School, where I was co-recipient of the Block 

Civil Liberties Award, and of the University of Pennsylvania. 

My testimony today will address 3 basic subjects. First, I will address the overall 

homeland terrorist threat, with particular emphasis on the 2 most prominent ones 

coming from violent Salafist Jihadists and far-right-wing extremists. Second, I will 

discuss issues relating to these movements in the context of prisons and post-release 

activities. Lastly, I will address issues relating to Countering Violent Extremism 

(CVE) programs in both the context of efficacy, as well as civil rights and civil liberties concerns. 

THE CONTEMPORARY TERROR THREAT TO THE AMERICAN HOMELAND

The United States faces multiple severe risk factors and a diverse set of emerging 

contemporary actors in the area of mass terrorism with shots on goal increasingly 

coming from across both the ideological and competency spectrum. According to the 

Global Terrorism Database (GTD) at the University of Maryland’s START Program, 

total terror attacks in the United States have increased from 9 in 2011 to 19 in 

2014, and from no fatalities in 2011, to 18 last year. The GTD data indicated that 

since 9/11 at least 66 attacks came from right-wing extremists, versus about 25 from 

Muslim ones. Other estimates put the number of home-grown Islamic plots far higher from 63 to 188 according to one of our Criminal Justice Masters’ recipients, Cynthia Quintero. 

The next deadly mass attack, assassination, or crippling infrastructure sabotage 

may not necessarily come from extremist movements that have had more terrorist 

attacks or plots before, or even more or better-trained adherents. Rather, the next 

terrorist attack will simply come from whoever is proximate, operational, and undetected tomorrow, and we can not mechanistically presume that the totality of these 

threats solely revolve around any single movement alone, including the two most 

prominent ones: Violent Salafist Jihadists and far-right-wing extremists. In today’s 

splintered socio-political landscape, increasingly sophisticated organized groups also 

share the stage with angry, unstable, or disenchanted loners; and with smaller informal groups. These latter actors may sculpt idiosyncratic hatreds on-line, become 

operational, and even recruit with little external backing. My counsel to the House 

Judiciary Committee almost exactly 20 years ago is even more valid today: 

‘‘Leaderless resistance calls for small autonomous bands of terrorists to further the 

overall goals of the movement by committing random acts of terror against public 

institutions, infrastructure targets, and innocent citizens. Information on how to 

commit such violence is widely available, and an underground market for the tools 

of destruction exists.’’ 

Former FBI supervisor, Dr. Carl Jensen III, writing in this month’s American Behavioral Scientist, that I co-edited, forecasts that over the next 5 years terrorists 

will make increasing use of technology, forge new alliances and hybrid structures, 

and morph between politics, criminal enterprises, and even gangs. 
20 

DIVERGING ASSESSMENTS OF THE OVERALL TERROR THREAT

While there are significant qualitative and quantitative factors that plausibly 

skew our Center’s current overall mass terror threat assessment toward violent 

Salafist Jihadists, available data does not yet indicate that their potency outside of 

prisons has sparked significant internal activity or a wave of recidivism. While there 

have been 2 known Salafist Jihadist prison-related plots at differing ends of the 

operational landscape over the last decade, and some really disturbing incidents involving bigoted literature and poorly-vetted clerics, far-right extremists, often operating as criminal syndicates, along with other ethnic-based prison gangs have been 

far more prominent and violent within correctional settings. 

While violent Salafist Jihadists have achieved extensive notoriety over recent 

years, they are but a tiny sliver of the estimated 2.7 million law-abiding American 

Muslims. Recent statements by FBI officials tentatively suggest violent Salafist 

Jihadists are possibly plateauing at the top of an evolving contemporary terrorism 

threat matrix, with 900 open investigations and 6 foreign fighter Middle East forays 

a month, down from a previous sustained level of 9 monthly departures. The catalytic civil wars in Syria and Iraq, a well-organized overseas ISIS presence, and the 

most sophisticated use of the internet ever for terrorist recruitment and training, 

is indeed the most profound, though hardly the only, threat to our National security. 

Moreover, while our Center’s threat assessment currently leans somewhat more 

towards violent Salafist Jihadist extremists due to ISIS, al-Qaeda, al-Shaabab and 

others, it is a close call. For instance, in the post-9/11 era 48 Americans have been 

killed in far-right-wing attacks, compared to 31 fatalities in Salafist Jihadist incidents. However, when all casualties, included the wounded are factored in, it is the 

Salafists who become more prominent. Although the Boston Marathon bombing 

killed only 3 civilians, it injured 264 others, with well over 1 dozen amputees. The 

subsequent lock-down of Boston and surrounding areas during the manhunt for the 

suspects also had significant economic costs to the region, not to mention the fear 

from the assailants being on the loose. Either of these metrics would have skewed 

substantially more toward radical Salafist Jihadists. A recent study by the Anti-Defamation League’s Dr. Mark Pitcavage, also in this month’s American Behavioral 

Scientist, however, shows that lone attacks by active shooters appear more prevalent among right-wing extremists. Moreover, a 2014 law enforcement agency survey, 

by the Police Executive Research Forum found that 74% regarded anti-Government 

extremism as being among the top threats, while only 39% listed extremist Muslim 

organizations, but the survey was concluded before ISIS ramped up external recruitment operations. Today’s threat scenario is fluid not only by the background of 

would-be actors, but also by the breadth of attack types, and the potential casualties 

are wide-ranging too, from moderate to devastatingly severe. 

PRISON EXTREMIST RISKS VARY

CVE programs, particularly those in the correctional and post-release settings, 

must be flexible and responsive not only to the diversity of extremist adherents by 

ideology, but to the civil rights and civil liberties issues that these responses necessarily impact. Context is critical. With respect to prison and post-release issues, 

we may very well be in the eye of a small incarceration storm with only about 200 

Internal Security and Terrorism Federal prosecutions last year, compared to over 

1,200 in 2002. The 2014 figures show a one-third decline in cases from 5 years ago 

and a 75% decline from the previous 10 years, according to the Syracuse Universitybased Transactional Record Access Clearinghouse. 

As Mr. Bjelopera points out, many of those convicted during the height of Federal 

prosecution efforts over the last decade have been or will be released soon, while 

new offenders may be ensnared in the foreseeable future as Federal authorities 

ramp up counter-terrorism investigations related to the recruitment efforts of ISIS 

and related entities. These numbers however, represent a mere fraction of the 1.5 

million prisoners incarcerated nationally, and of the 211,000 incarcerated in the 

Federal system, which accounts for 13% of all prisoners Nationally, according to the 

Bureau of Justice Statistics. 

Moreover, researchers urge prudence in our analysis. As Dr. Mark Hamm noted 

in a National Institute of Justice Study entitled Prisoner Radicalization: Assessing 

the Threat in U.S. Correctional Institutions: 

‘‘[E]xtensive literature review revealed that moving from radicalization to actual recruitment for terrorism is a rare event. Only a small percentage of converts to white 

supremacy groups and to Islam—primarily, fresh converts, the newly pious, with an 

abundance of emotion and feeling—turn radical beliefs into terrorist action. Therefore, it seems reasonable to conclude that it is not the sheer number of prisoners 
21 

following extremist interpretations of religious doctrines that poses a threat; rather, 

it is the potential for small groups of radicals to form support networks for terrorist 

goals upon release.’’ 

THE JIS CASE: OUTLIER OR BELLWETHER?

Fortunately, to the present time violent activity exhibited by these extremists in 

the prison and post-release context has been significantly less pronounced than in 

other contexts, with only 1 identifiable independently operational prison-related terror plot in 2005 in Southern California, out of well over 120 post-9/11 cases involving violent Salafist Jihadists. The Jam’iyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh, or JIS, terror plot, 

however, was the first operational home-grown Salafist Jihadist plot in the post9/11 era. 

The JIS cell and plot formed inside a California State Prison from a small group 

founded in 1997 by convict Kevin James. Torrance, California police, aided by a regional law enforcement consortium, unraveled a local conspiracy to attack military, 

Jewish, and Israeli targets that was to be financed through a series of armed robberies. The plotters included three American-born converts along with a Pakistaniborn man, and with the exception of extremist literature was completely homegrown. Dr. Hamm observed in his NIJ report that, ‘‘James, however, was the first 

gang member to radicalize inmates into joining a prison gang with a terrorist agenda.’’ Attempted airplane shoe bomber Richard Reid converted to Islam while incarcerated in Britain, while another terror convict Jose Padilla was a violent gang 

member with a criminal record before his conversion. 

Interestingly, violent Salafist Jihadists, who apparently are classified as international in orientation by authorities, irrespective of their birthplace, citizenship, or 

gang affiliations, do not appear to have yet developed an imposing prison infrastructure or demonstrated a pattern of recidivism, though the exact extent of their prison 

radicalism is largely unknown and could very well accelerate as their representation 

and infrastructure evolves. Muslims, and converts in particular, appear to be among 

the fastest-growing segments of the prison population. 

The apparent relative lull in violent Salafist extremism in the correctional and 

post-release setting, while possibly temporary, is probably due to a variety of factors. First, because of a post-9/11 pivot to terrorism interdiction, many Federal prosecutions come at earlier stages of criminality than was previously the case. Thus, 

some of those ensnared are less competent, motivated, and operationally advanced 

than was previously the case. Moreover, these defendants, often convicted on lesser 

charges, lack the structural and communicative connections to organized gang or 

terror groups compared to other extremists, or even fellow travelers on the outside. 

The Center on Law and Security at New York University, School of Law found that 

in the decade following 9/11 the five most charged offenses in terrorism cases were: 

1. 18 U.S.C. § 371; Conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud the United 

States, 

2. 18 U.S.C. § 2339A; Providing material support to terrorists, 

3. 18 U.S.C § 2339B; Providing material support or resources to designated foreign terrorist organizations, 

4. 18 U.S.C. § 1001; (False) Statements or entries generally, and 

5. 18 U.S.C. § 1956; Laundering of monetary instruments 

Lastly, with the exception of individuals like Egyptian clerics ‘‘Blind Sheikh’’ 

Omar Abdel-Rahman and hook-handed cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri nearly all of the 

convicted Salafist Jihadists were not part of the hierarchy of the movement or considered theologically authoritative. The lack of accessible incarcerated charismatic 

leaders may have been a factor in stunting the spread of certain types of radicalism. 

FAR-RIGHT-WING EXTREMISTS

Another prominent terrorist threat comes from adherents to an array of extreme 

far-right-wing ideologies. These far-right-wing extremists, who are properly distinguished from peaceful politically-active Conservative citizens, are steeped in deepseated bigotry, an array of increasingly mainstreamed conspiracy theories, and exhibit a profound distrust of pluralistic democratic governance. Distressingly, it 

should be noted that trust in Government and other institutions including religion, 

media, academia, finance, and health care have declined precipitously in recent decades across the general population as well. 

The FBI reportedly lists 7 current domestic extremist categories, with 4 arguably 

falling under the extreme right-wing umbrella: 

• White Supremacists 

• Anti-government Militias 

• Abortion Extremists 
22 

• ‘‘Sovereign Citizen’’ Nationalists. 

Some like white supremacists and neo-Nazis have a significant prison presence 

Nationally because they belong to more structured hate groups or racial criminal 

syndicates, like Aryan Brotherhood, Nazi Low Riders and California’s Public Enemy 

Number 1, a racist gang that exists both inside and outside of prisons. In the racist 

neo-Nazi and white supremacist subculture there is significant approbation for violence, with imprisonment serving as a mark of distinction. These bigots, like Animal 

Liberation adherents, Jewish radicals, Black Separatists and violent Anti-Abortion 

extremists regard many of their incarcerated ideologues as political prisoners who 

took a selfless stand against a corrupt powerful Government and immoral society. 

In the neo-Nazi and white supremacist sub-culture some prisoners are hailed as folk 

heroes and political prisoners of the ‘‘Zionist Occupation Government.’’ 

For example, prisoner and Federal felon David Lane was a co-founder of the violent domestic terrorist group, The Order, which took its name from fictional antiGovernment terrorists in the racist Turner Diaries novel. Before his death behind 

bars in 2007, Lane became a folk hero and ‘‘political prisoner’’ whose written works 

were widely circulated throughout the white supremacy world, while his ‘‘14 words’’ 

became a mantra for violent racists, including the mass killer of African-American 

Charleston church members earlier this year. Upon his death memorials for him 

were held around the world. 

AT Think Progress Online Magazine recently observed: 

‘‘White supremacist prison gangs are the only formal subculture in the American racialist movement that is thriving, and yet, ironically, their ideology is also the most 

superficial and least consequential to their day-to-day operations... The Aryan 

Brotherhood is widely considered the oldest and most notorious racialist prison gang 

in the United States.’’ 

CVE RESPONSES IN THE CORRECTIONAL AND POST-RELEASE CONTEXT

In the correctional context, both pragmatism and civil rights protections can be 

coextensive. As President Obama counseled, ‘‘As for our common defense, we reject 

as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.’’ It is one thing to discuss terror threats in general, but prisons ensnare and release individuals first, rather than 

ideologies. 

As seen below extremists are individuals with differing influences, so there is simply no one-size-fits-all solution, nor one that is fool-proof. Extremists like Holocaust 

Museum shooter James Von Brunn, served 6 years in prison for an armed plot 

against Federal Reserve members before his murderous attack decades later. In 

France Amedy Coulibaly was radicalized in prison by ‘‘segregated’’ al-Qaeda supporter Djamel Beghal, before his homicidal rampage this past January, years after 

his release. Alleged Army of God member Shelley Shannon firebombed clinics and 

shot a physician. She nonetheless, still communicated with ‘‘Reverend’’ Paul Hill 

during her incarceration, before he murdered two people outside a Pensacola, Florida clinic. 

Extremists come in three general types: 

Ideologically Motivated 

• Religious 

• Political 

• Hybrid 

Psychologically Dangerous 

• Cognitively Impaired OR 

• Sociopath 

Personal Benefit or Revenge 

• (Most can be ‘‘mixed and matched,’’ but one is dominant.) 

Randy Borum defines radicalization as the ‘‘process of developing extremist 

ideologies and beliefs.’’ As Pete Simi and Bryan Bubolz point out the transition from 

nonviolent to violent ideology can include a variety of catalytic influences including: 

• internet propaganda, 

• social networks and personal connections to existing extremists, 

• religious and political leaders, 

• and intergroup conflicts. 

Governmental programs promoting deradicalization, that is the social and psychological desistence from violent extremism, occurs internationally, where laws, state 

authority, societal norms, and religious roles vary significantly. Horgan and Brad-
23 

dock observed that internationally, these programs involve education, occupational 

assistance, mentoring, psychological assistance, and encouraging a shift to positive 

social networks. In the United States, where large numbers of prisoners are dispersed across Federal and State institutions, deradicalization programs are not as 

focused or sophisticated as some of our smaller allies, but are sometimes modeled 

from those used in the gang and cult disengagement process. 

Cilluffo, Cardash, and Khor detail an intensive, culturally unique, Saudi program 

that nonetheless still has a failure rate of 10–20%: 

‘‘Since 2004 Saudi Arabia has operated one of the most high-profile terrorist 

deradicalization and disengagement programs in the world. The Saudi approach 

blends coercion with an appeal to family/clan honor by integrating detainees’ family 

members into the deradicalization and disengagement effort, in part by holding a 

close male relative responsible for keeping the released prisoner out of trouble following release. Significant financial resources are likewise invested in the case of 

each detainee in order to provide the individual with the tools necessary (such as 

a car and a job) to succeed outside of prison and the realm of violent extremist 

groups. Regarding the counseling component, Muslim clerics meet with detainees 

and prisoners as part of the Saudi program. To facilitate reintegration back into society and after-care, both governmental and non-governmental agencies are involved.’’ 

While domestic programs are still being developed, some key final points are 

worth noting. Correctional and post-release programs, by their very nature restrict 

liberties. (See e.g. Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517 (1984)). However, in 1987, the 

United States Supreme Court held that prison walls ‘‘do not form a barrier separating prison inmates from the protections of the Constitution.’’ (Turner v. Safley, 

482 U.S. 78, 84). The high court further held that prison regulations impinging on 

Constitutional rights must be ‘‘reasonably related to legitimate penological interests.’’ Still, the Court granted deference to prison officials by instructing judges to 

exercise a ‘‘policy of judicial restraint’’ in cases of Constitutional claims by prisoners. 

Outside of prison, in many instances, depending on individualized threat assessments and conditions of release, it may be necessary to monitor or restrict contacts, 

travel, weapon possession, drug use, technology, and employment, among other 

things. However, whatever restrictions or aftercare measures are implemented, they 

must be applied based on objective individualized criteria and not discriminatory 

stereotypes that not only violate civil rights, but damage offender disengagement 

from extremists, as well as trust from the mainstream communities that are essential to our partnerships. 

It is key that CVE responses in this context should take into account the following: 

• The reestablishment of moderating influences from offender’s family and community may be key, as they provide an alternative during disengagement form 

anti-social associations. 

• Individualized, and culturally-specific programs and aftercare, which may include emotional counseling, substance rehabilitation and vocational training 

should be considered. 

• Flexible monitoring and counseling by trained professionals should be individually tailored to promote disengagement and prevent reinfection. 

• When indicated and legal, monitoring may include associations, technology access, financial reporting, employment, location, and long-distance travel. 

• CVE programs should be more open to legitimate academic research as restrictions make objective micro research on individuals as well as trend analysis difficult. 

• CVE programs addressing extremism should always be implemented to consider 

all religious backgrounds and all parts of the political spectrum in a manner 

that does not infringe on Constitutional rights. 

In the words of Senator Robert Kennedy, let us work together toward this noble 

effort to: ‘‘[D]edicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame 

the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.’’ 

Thank you. I will address any question the committee may have. 

APPENDIX

Definition of Terrorism 

The unlawful use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individuals; 

to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment there-
24 

of in furtherance of political or social objectives. (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 

Counterterrorism Division, 2007). 

FBI National Domestic Threat Assessment 

• White Supremacist Extremists • Black Separatist Extremists • Anti-Government Militias • Abortion Extremists • Violent Animal Rights • Environmental Extremists • ‘‘Sovereign Citizen’’ Nationalists • Anarchists 

Terrorist Incidents Directed Towards Americans by U.S. Deaths 

1. 9/11 Attacks, Incendiary Bombing by Aircraft, NY, DC, PA 2,975 killed, 9/ 

11/2001 Al-Qaeda 

2. U.S. Marine Barracks, Truck Bombing, Beirut, Leb., 241 killed (US) 10/23/ 

1983 Hizbollah precursor 

3. Pan Am Fl. 103, Aircraft Bombing, Lockerbie, Scotland, 270 killed (189 US), 

12/21/1988 Libyan Agent 

4. Murrah Fed. Bldg., Truck Bombing, Oklahoma City, OK, 168 killed 4/19/1995 

Anti-gov’t extremists 

5. Bath, MI School Bombings, Bombing, 44 killed, 5/18/1927 Disgruntled taxpayer 

6. Wall Street Bombing, Horse Cart Bomb, NY, 35 killed, 9/16/1920 Socialists/ 

Anarchists Suspected 

7. Los Angeles Times Bldg., Bombing, Los Angeles, CA, 21 killed, 10/01/1910, 

Union militants 

Source: Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism. 

Extremists by Organizational Structure 

Lone Offender 

• Ted Kaczynski, Unabomber (1978–1995) • James Vonn Brunn, Holocaust Museum Shooter (2009) • Richard Poplawski, Pittsburgh Police Killer (2009) • Kevin Harpham, WA MLK Parade Bomb Plot (2011) 

Duo (Leader & Follower) 

• John Allen Muhammed & Lee Boyd Malvo, DC Sniper (2002) • Timothy McVeigh & Terry Nichols, Oklahoma City Bombings (1995) 

Autonomous Cell 

• The Order (Neo Nazi, 1980s) • JIS (CA—1st operational Jihadist Cell) 

Command Cell/Large Group 

• 9/11 

• Symbionese Liberation Army 

• Weather Underground 

• Traditional Ku Klux Klan 

Terrorism by Method 

• Explosives 

• Arson 

• Active Shooting 

• Targeted Assassination 

• Multiple Simultaneous Targeting 

• WMD 

• Sabotage 

• Chem/Bio 

• Radiological Nuclear 

• Disabling Infrastructure: Cyber, Transport, Communication, Energy 

Potential Targets by Type 

Symbolic 

• Government 

• Religious 

• Cultural 

• Political 
25 

• Financial Center 

Military/Police 

Aviation & Transit 

Other Infrastructure: Power Grids 

Cyber 

Special Events/Anniversaries 

Assassination 

Idiosyncratic 

High Density 

• Events • Entertainment • Schools • Hotels 

Mr. KING. Thank you very much, Professor Levin. 

I thank all the witnesses for their testimony. 

Let me begin on the point that Professor Levin raised at the end 

about the Constitutional guarantees, and obviously, there is a line 

we have to be very concerned about. I really ask all three of the 

witnesses. Commissioner Parker, you mentioned about the experiences of Singapore and Saudi Arabia. I would like to ask the witnesses if they are aware of any other deradicalization programs in 

other countries, and to what extent do you think we can use the 

methods used in a non-democratic society such as Saudi Arabia or 

Singapore here in the United States without violating civil rights 

and civil liberties? I guess we will just go across the board. Mr. 

Bjelopera. 

Mr. PARKER. Sure. 

Mr. KING. Okay. Mr. Parker. 

Mr. PARKER. My research at the time of my research, I found a 

couple of other programs, but they were all very similar in nature. 

All of them basically dealt with a—were framed around a counseling program where they basically targeted the ideological perspective of the inmate based on a misinterpretation of a religious 

text. All of them were pretty much the same, a 3- or 4-step process 

where they had counselors, people who come in and talk to the inmates with an attempt to try to change their mindset, basically, before they were released. So all of the programs that I found were 

pretty much the same. 

Mr. KING. In what way can they be adapted to the United States, 

do you believe? 

Mr. PARKER. Well, I think there is an open door there. Currently, 

we have to look at what are we doing now. What are we doing now 

in BOP when we house these offenders. I have had the opportunity 

to talk to Director Samuels and with some other people with the 

BOP. We basically take a containment model, a total security 

model where we house these individuals in a segregation unit, and 

we may provide them some type of vocational training at some 

point, but the point is, we are not doing anything to try to address 

the ideological motives that make them the way they are. 

The point is, if we train people to be welders, a vocational program, a terrorist, a convicted terrorist, and we turn them out with 

only that training, then all we have done is put a welder in society 

that is still a terrorist. 
26 

Mr. KING. Professor Levin. 

Mr. LEVIN. Yes, if I may. Cilluffo, Cardash, and Khor detailed an 

intensive culturally-unique Saudi program that nonetheless still 

had a failure rate of 10 to 20 percent. ‘‘Since 2004, Saudi Arabia 

has operated one of the most high-profile terrorist deradicalization 

and disengagement programs in the world. The Saudi approach 

blends coercion with an appeal to family, clan, honor, by integrating the detainee’s family members into the deradicalization 

and disengagement effort, in part, by holding a close male relative 

responsible for keeping the released prisoner out of trouble following release.’’ 

Significant financial resources are likewise invested in the case 

of each detainee in order to provide the individual with the tools 

necessary, such as a car or a job to succeed outside of prison, and 

the reality of violent extremist groups. Regarding the counseling 

component, Muslim clerics meet with detainees and prisoners as 

part of the Saudi program to facilitate reintegration back into society as well as after-care, both governmental and non-governmental 

agencies involved. 

But the Saudi model, and I think this is interesting, they put a 

lot of money into it, it is very culturally-specific, and there, where 

clerics have a direct connection to the Government, there is a type 

of, I think, authority and gravitas that those religious leaders 

would have that we couldn’t have in a more secularized society 

such as ours. To be sure, we have seen some disturbing cases that 

have been outlined in various testimonies before this committee before. 

I would say, though, if we look at a lot of the surveys that are 

out there, including the Pew surveys and others, the overwhelming 

majority of American Muslims are quite concerned about extremism as well. One of the reasons that they so love this country, 

and I think this is very important, is because, that there is not an 

orthodoxy of acceptable religious expression here. But I think, basically, common sense prevails. 

As President Obama said, we don’t have to check our ideals and 

our pragmatism with respect to terrorism. The same rules can 

apply. We had a shooter and an arsonist of medical clinics go to 

prison and was counseling a reverend who then shot an abortion 

provider to death. So common sense prevails, but I do think that 

one of the things that we have to understand, and I put this in my 

testimony, is that there are different types of extremists that do 

not rely upon necessarily one aspect. 

So in other words, some theological-based extremists might very 

well have sociopathic or cognitive impairments. They may also be 

seeking personal benefit or revenge. So if we step away from 

stereotypes and approach each prisoner and the situation uniquely, 

it says something. I think just, if I may, Mr. Bjelopera made an excellent point, and that is, a lot of times it is attachment to social 

networks or some kind of connection to a leader that is important. 

Something that I just want to close with in answering your question, one of the things that we have not seen in American prisons 

yet has been this hierarchy where theological leaders, Salafists 

with gravitas are in prison. We get a lot of low-level people who 

have been connected to the movement who are converts or through 
27 

social networks or the internet. So we haven’t seen yet, in other 

words, a network top-down, with the exception of Sheikh Rahman 

and a couple of other examples, where they have that gravitas. 

But interestingly enough, in France, where they segregated, for 

instance, clerics, nonetheless, one of the Paris massacre killers was 

in direct communication in prison, gets released, is monitored, and 

then 5 or 6 years later commits an act of brutal terrorism. So what 

we have to do is be flexible, and in some instances monitoring may 

be necessary. But if we are going to do so, we have to look at the 

individual characteristics and understand that fanatics come across 

the ideological spectrum. We want to go make sure that we look 

at people such as Coulibaly over in France, who did those terrible 

attacks, but also James Von Brunn who tried to do an armed attack on the Federal Reserve, and then decades later, shot up the 

Holocaust Museum. Or the head of the White Patriot Party who, 

in the 1980s, was incarcerated, and then goes, shoots up a Jewish 

center decades later. 

We have to be careful with all extremists and look at their individual situations in order to come up with a CVE counter-extremism rehabilitative or monitoring program. It has got to be individualized. It has got to be culturally-specific. 

Mr. KING. I am over my time. 

Mr. Bjelopera, do you have anything to add? Then I will go to 

Mr. Higgins. 

Mr. BJELOPERA. Just one slight comment. I defer to my fellow 

witnesses and their expertise in this area. But to paraphrase a 

scholar, the vast majority of people who hold radical beliefs don’t 

necessarily become terrorists, and terrorists may not themselves 

primarily be driven by radical beliefs. 

In such a challenging environment, it is extremely difficult to figure out who is going to become a terrorist, who isn’t, when to intervene, and how to intervene, and I can only begin to fathom the 

challenges that prison officials and law enforcement face in this 

area. 

Mr. KING. Thank you. Mr. Higgins, as much time as you want. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Thank you. Mr. Bjelopera, in your testimony, you 

described non-traditional form of Islam practiced in United States 

prisons termed ‘‘Prison Islam.’’ This form of Islam is not necessarily 

consistent with jihadist principles. Is there a trend in U.S. prisons 

that would suggest that the current form of Prison Islam is being 

supplanted by a more extreme form of jihadist Islam? 

Mr. BJELOPERA. Thank you. It is very difficult to, given public information, publicly-available sources, to dip into that realm and understand trends and broad currents in terms of faith, in terms of 

radical beliefs. Again, I would defer to people who have studied 

prisons directly or worked in prisons directly who may have greater 

expertise in the general trends. 

One of the other challenging issues here is that our prison system isn’t unitary. There are all sorts of different levels of prisons 

and different structures of authority. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Mr. Parker. 

Mr. PARKER. I would say, you know, again, that is very hard to 

determine. One of the recommendations that I made was there is 

definitely a need for more social science research in our facilities. 
28 

Correctional administrators must be willing to open the doors to 

allow researchers in. Academic facilities must be willing to go 

through the—work with individuals through the IRB process to get 

research approved for prisoners. There is a big data set there that 

we are missing as far as research inside of our correctional facilities. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Mr. Levin. 

Mr. LEVIN. You know, interesting enough, in the past, when prisoners converted to Islam it actually had a positive impact with regard to rehabilitation in many, many instances. Giving up many 

vices and violence and becoming more introspective, is a part of the 

Islamic faith. Indeed, introspection during the month of Ramadan, 

for instance, proclamation of faith, prayer 5 times a day, and adhering to, for instance, dietary rituals puts a structure, and in 

many ways, in the past, in many instances, had had a positive effect. 

Here is the problem. We currently now, according to publiclyavailable sources, have 900 open investigations relating to ISIS 

and related extremists. We have seen that there have been approximately 125 prosecutions, and the average defendant that we 

have seen has been about age 31. The top 5 charges have been providing material support to terrorism or terrorist groups, both foreign and domestic, money laundering, et cetera. So we have two 

things that are happening in this eye of the storm. 

Last year, we haven’t had a lot of prosecutions relative to what 

we had 10 years ago. So we had like 200 or something like that. 

Yet we have 900 open investigations. We had 1,200 cases in 2002, 

so we are in the eye of the storm now. One of the things I have 

to say is, in August 2001, there was a New York Times op ed, 

which spoke quite authoritatively using retrospective data on how 

Salafist jihadist terrorism wasn’t a problem, and then weeks later 

we have the 9/11 attacks. 

We are in such a fluid situation both with the overall terror 

threat matrix and with respect to ISIS and other groups. In this 

month’s American Behavioral Scientist, which I co-edited, I did an 

article about one small group of 22 people that had an internet 

presence that in 2009 to 2010 was linked to the 30 to 40 percent 

of terrorist plots in the United States. 

Now we have a sophisticated quasi-state recruiting effort using 

the internet, with 900 investigations in 50 States. What is going to 

happen when these people come into prison in greater numbers 

and there may be people with more clerical authority? So we just 

don’t know. By the same token, we have Christian identity adherents who are very upset with the kinds of changes that are going 

on in society now. 

The Klan hit its biggest zenith at a time of similar change almost 

100 years ago. So we have basically a chaotic, very fluid structure—I am sorry, situation with regard to extremism that is coming from different places. I am worried that the salutory effects 

that exist now are temporary, and that in the future, as more people come in who have been radicalized through the most sophisticated effort we have ever seen in history involving technology, that 

this may very well change within a very short time. 
29 

Mr. HIGGINS. Thank you very much. I would ask that the Chair 

recognize Congressman Langevin to participate in this hearing. 

Mr. KING. Without objection, so ordered. It is a pleasure. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you. 

Mr. KING. I now recognize the Chairman of the Transportation 

Security Subcommittee, Mr. Katko. 

Mr. KATKO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to focus on something a little different here, and that is, the access to information 

that prisoners have that might lead to radicalization. I know you 

have the word of fellow inmates, but I just concluded a study from 

the Foreign Fighters Task Force with ISIS, and it is painfully clear 

that ISIS is radicalizing people over the internet at an alarming 

rate. The question I have for each of you is, on the Federal prison 

level as well as the State prison level, what type of media access 

do they have? 

I know it is some of it is monitored, some of it is not from my 

days as a Federal prosecutor for 20 years, and I got a lot of good 

information on that over the years to bring cases. But I am concerned about their access to the internet, I am concerned about 

their access to various sources of media which seem to be neverending these days. 

So if you could each comment on that for me, I would appreciate 

it. 

Mr. BJELOPERA. I can comment only in general terms. I would 

imagine that they have much less or less access than they would 

on the outside. One of the factors that I would also throw in there 

is that many of these suspects related to ISIS who are being put 

into the system, arguably have short-term experience in terms of 

radicalization on the outside, and so it will be interesting to see 

what happens on the inside of prison cells to these people who 

haven’t spent maybe years or decades, maybe just months or weeks 

thinking about radical violent jihadist things. 

Mr. KATKO. Again, my thing is once they get in there, what do 

they have access to? That is the more important question. 

Mr. PARKER. Thank you. One of the primary points that I would 

like to make is, just because someone is in a correctional environment, don’t assume they don’t have access to the information. 

Mr. KATKO. That is my point. 

Mr. PARKER. You know, in today’s correctional environment, not 

only in Tennessee but across this Nation, we fight every day to 

keep illegal cell phones out of our facilities. We have been in 

touch—a lot of other correctional agencies have been in communications with FCC to try to come up with a solution that would 

disable these phones inside that correctional environment. 

We are not allowed to jam the cell phone signal inside the correctional facility. So the only other options at this point is very expensive other technology that often becomes outdated within a year. 

We try to monitor the literature that comes in through our mail 

rooms. Most prisons do. They have a monitoring process. One of the 

things that is critical there, though, is that we have staff that is 

trained to recognize that message, that violent extremist message, 

the message that we will not allow in our facilities. You have to 

have people at that ground level, correctional-officer-level, properly 
30 

* The document has been retained in committee files. 

trained to recognize that and to catch that coming through the filters that we have for inmates receiving information. 

They have access to their family, they have access to the television, they watch the news. So an inmate with an illegal cell 

phone in prison has a lot of access to the media and also what is 

going on in the world. 

Mr. KATKO. Now, what about their access to the internet or anything? Do they have any access to computers? 

Mr. PARKER. Well, they have access to computers, but a computer 

that they would have access to in the facility is basically locked 

down. They can’t get to a lot of internet sites. It is very limited. 

But a person with an illegal smart phone inside the facility has access to the internet. 

Mr. KATKO. Okay. Then, of course, they have access to books and 

magazines, and they also have access to telephones to talk to individuals. 

Mr. PARKER. Absolutely. That is a constant struggle. That is one 

of the things that a corrections department has to have their security threat group coordinators that work in conjunction with the 

mailroom staff to vet that material coming in to identify that message before it gets to the inmate. 

Mr. KATKO. Thank you. Mr. Levin. 

Mr. LEVIN. Yes. One of the things, you know, very interesting, 

again, what I would like to get permission to do, because of these 

questions, is to introduce into the record some of the articles that 

we have in this month’s American Behavioral Scientist, which in 

some way is responsive to these questions. One of my colleagues— 

two of my colleagues, actually, Pete Simi and Bryan Bubolz, wrote 

about how folks get radicalized, and they listed 4 things, and at the 

top was internet propaganda. Of course, there is social networks, 

religious and political leaders, and then there is intergroup conflicts, which can be catalytic, anything from Waco, for instance, to 

the civil war in the Middle East. 

I can’t tell you how important—— 

Mr. KING. Without objection, that article will be introduced into 

the record.* 

Mr. LEVIN. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. I can’t tell you 

how important this recruitment has been, again, across the ideological spectrum. So you can get the Turner Diaries, which has been 

linked to such things as the Oklahoma City bombing. Look at page 

39 of that book. It describes a truck bomb attack on a Federal facility at 9:00 in the morning, and that book was sold by Timothy 

McVeigh below cost to get the word out. 

David Lane was in prison. David Lane was a part of a group 

called The Order that was inspired by this book, the Turner Diaries. The 14 words about preserving the white race that the 

Charleston shooter used, he would send materials out through his 

wife while he was in prison. So now we have not only that, the 

Turner Diaries is on the internet. We also have Dabiq Magazine, 

on-line ISIS magazine, we have Inspire magazine by AQAP. Right 

after the Boston Marathon bombings, I was on National television, 

I said, you know, this is really interesting. There is this magazine 
31 

that just came out, and you know what was in it, a recipe to make 

a pressure cooker bomb. Indeed, what came out at the trial was the 

Tsarnaev brothers had that magazine. 

So internet access is extremely important to the recruitment. But 

what I am saying to you is, it is important across the ideological 

spectrum, and what we must not do is say, well, we are just going 

to go after one type of extremist because what I can tell you in this 

business, like politics and baseball, what you might think in June, 

come October will be a different story. 

Mr. KATKO. Thank you very much. 

Mr. KING. I recognize the Ranking Member. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Let me 

just say how really good our witnesses are. I mean, they are—you 

know, that is a credit to you. 

Mr. KING. Once again, we agree. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, and you see we are a 

good committee. 

Mr. Parker, as somebody who is in this business every day, I find 

it, that the thought in corrections, obviously, a few years ago it was 

lock them up, throw away the key, don’t provide anything to them, 

and when their time is up, push them out the door. I think the recidivism rates and other things that came behind that, people have 

now started saying we got to do some other things to try to tamp 

down the likelihood of people coming back once they get out. 

So is it your experience that if we start looking at this terrorist 

threat that potentially can evolve inside the prisons, we need to 

look at it as a whole rather than as a silo? In other words, let’s 

look at all the bad guys and develop a strategy around that? 

Mr. PARKER. Absolutely, sir. A couple of points I would like to 

make. In the correctionals field, when we talk about violent extremists, when we talk about the culture and the environment that 

we work in every day, that prisoners live in every day, I think we 

have to focus on two things. One is the environment. Now, there 

is a lot of room left for research in regards to the environment. 

What is it about prisons, what is about about that environment? 

Again, all prisons are not the same. What is it about that environment that promotes radicalization? What can we do, as correctional 

practitioners, as lawmakers, to try to change and modify that to 

mitigate the threat of radicalization? That is part of my research 

that we considered. What can we do on that side? 

The other piece is the environment of the rehabilitative initiatives that we have to put in place. I think you are exactly right. 

If we lock people up under the control and containment model and 

just deal with the security aspect of putting them away, putting 

them in an environment to where they have no access to anyone 

else or any programs, then we keep them there until the day comes 

when they knock and it is time to let them go home. 

So then we asked ourselves the question, what have we done to 

prepare these individuals to return to society? I think that is exactly right. It doesn’t matter if it is an Islamic radical or if it is 

a white supremacist. We have to take the same approach across 

the board. But it is a very important question to ask, what are we 

doing in the corrections field to prepare these individuals to return 
32 

to our communities? Because I think a lot of times we forget, over 

90 percent of them will be returning. That is critical. 

A colleague of mine, a Michael Brown that studied at NPS, addressed this in 2011 when he wrote a thesis on the ripples that created when we released these terrorists from prison, how do we 

know where they are, how do we track them? Do we need to track 

a terrorist that is released from BOP back into the community? 

We require other inmates in some categories to be registered. 

That is a question I think that needs to be put on the table and 

discussed. Do we have a public interest in knowing where a convicted terrorist lives at, and where they move to? How does the 

sheriff or the official police chief or the DA in a county know who 

is in their county? 

I think those are all relevant questions, but I think more relevant is that what we do inside that facility to prepare a person 

to return. If it is an ideology that promotes extremism and 

radicalization, then I think we need to look at possible solutions 

that meet due process and civil rights standards, that we can challenge them and talk to them, have discourse about what they believe, and try to use every tool we have to change their mindset or 

at least to get them to disengage before we turn them back out into 

the community. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you. Mr. Levin, are you aware of any recommendations or research as to what we can look at once a person 

leaves a penal institution and get back into society that meets the 

civil rights, civil liberties test? 

Mr. LEVIN. Yes. One of the things that I do want to point out is 

that we don’t imprison ideologies. We imprison flawed people. So 

it has got to be individualized and culturally-specific. I think a lot 

of times, in this media-driven world that we are in, you know, 

sometimes we are seeing all Muslims all the same and then there 

is something else and it is all extremist Nazis all the time. What 

I am saying is, our center sees everyone all the time. 

You know, I am worried about the animal liberation extremist. 

You know, one of the things that we also have to take into account 

is, we are presuming that when an extremist is in prison, for instance, that they will only—if they are white supremacist, they will 

only look at white supremacist material. 

There is animal liberation material. There is radical material 

across the board which might help them become operational even 

if it is not something they share ideologically. 

So I think a couple things: First, we have to look at an individualized and particularized threat matrix that is prisoner or released-person specific. What I worry about is that when we have 

a CVE program we are going to be looking at the shot-on-goal coming from here and it very well may come from here next time. I 

think there are content and viewpoint neutral aspects that must be 

incorporated. 

So there might be an animal liberation person that gets released 

from prison, and we will have to make sure that their associational 

activities might be restricted, their travel might be restricted if appropriate, their access to the internet may be restricted; not necessarily because of their ideology, but because they happen to be 

a person prone to violence and certain associations. 
33 

We know that when you take a focus on ideology only off the 

table, we see that there are various characteristics that many of 

these people share. I have interviewed convicted terrorists in the 

Middle East, I have interviewed Aryan folks, I have interviewed 

Jewish extremists, Animal Liberation, and they share certain characteristics. When they get to a certain point, they are a threat irrespective of what ideology they are looking at. 

Certainly, ideology does play a role. Interestingly enough—and I 

will close with this—many of the people, particularly converts, for 

instance, whether it is people who came into the Christian identity 

world, which is a racist religion of white supremacy—it is not a 

Christian religion—where people who go into violent radical 

Salafist jihadism, many of them had unique personal issues that 

prompted them to anti-social behavior. 

We have to look at that as well in the context of the ideology. 

If you look at ideology alone, without the individualized drivers 

that took people into this, then we are missing it. Jose Padilla— 

and it is pronounced Padilla, by the way—Jose Padilla was a gang 

member in south Florida. 

Bledsoe experimented with different religions. He was the Little 

Rock recruitment shooter, bounced from religion to religion. He had 

antisocial issues before. So if we are just saying, well, we are going 

to have a CVE program that focuses only on one ideology, then we 

may very well be looking there when the shot-on-goal is coming 

from here. I believe that we can do so in a Constitutional manner. 

Indeed, if we only look at one community, I think there are not 

only pragmatic issues but Constitutional issues as well. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Thank you. 

Yield back, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. KING. First, just for the record, Bledsoe’s father testified before this committee twice, back in 2011. 

Mr. LEVIN. Yes. 

Mr. KING. Was a very compelling witness. 

I now recognize the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Barletta. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

My constituent senior correctional officer Eric Williams of Nanticoke, Pennsylvania, proudly worked in a United States prison. He 

was brutally murdered by convicted gang assassin Jessie Con-Ui on 

February 13, 2013. I applaud the decision by the prosecutors to 

seek the death penalty for this terrible crime. I want to thank his 

coworkers, some of them who are in town today, for the job they 

do every day to make our Nation a safer place. 

One simple bill that would help the 39,000-plus employees working in our Federal prison system is the Eric Williams Correctional 

Officer Safety Act, introduced by David McKinley, Tom Marino, 

and Matt Cartwright. I am a cosponsor of the bill, and Pat Toomey 

has introduced it on the Senate side. It is a simple, bipartisan bill 

that will require the Bureau of Prisons to issue pepper spray to 

correctional officers and employees in high- and medium-security 

prisons. 

Assistant Commissioner Parker, can you describe the conditions 

under which pepper spray would be helpful to prison workers, and 

why would pepper spray be preferable over some other form of nonlethal weapons? 
34 

Mr. PARKER. Yes, I would be happy to. Chemical agents are one 

of the items that we use for officer protection. When you look at 

the level of use of force, it is usually the second level, third level 

up. Once you establish physical force, the chemical agents are 

available. The only caveat there is to make sure that individuals 

are trained in the use of chemical agents, the proper use of chemical agents. 

We issue chemical agents to our officers in Tennessee, especially 

those working in maximum custody units and high-security restricted housing areas. Yes, it is a very productive tool. You have 

inmates in physical altercations or even an inmate that may attack 

an officer. Chemical agents is one of the first resources that would 

be available to use that. 

It basically hampers the offender’s ability to see. It disorientates 

them. So it makes it a lot easier to handle the inmate. Very productive tool. 

Mr. LEVIN. If I may, as someone who has actually been sprayed 

with pepper spray, one thing when I was in the NYPD, we had 

someone who—I was not personally involved in this—who was on 

drugs and extremely strong and in a close situation. Pepper spray 

was ineffective. So I am not opposed to your bill, but what I can 

say is sometimes a risk in a closed environment is that depending 

on how it is dispersed, it could affect correctional officers and other 

prisoners. 

Additionally, some of these prisoners are pretty brutal people. If 

they were to grab the pepper spray, it could have a deleterious effect on correctional officers. But I will leave that to the folks with 

the training and the design. But having the opportunity to be 

armed with pepper spray, it is a tool but it isn’t fool-proof. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Yeah. In this case Con-Ui kicked Williams down 

a flight of stairs before brutally beating him and slashing him to 

death with two shanks. This may have been a case had he been 

able to have something to defend himself, he would be alive today. 

One final question: As a former mayor before I came here, so how 

will a local police chief, sheriff, or mayor know if a terror inmate 

will be released into their community, and are you aware of a process for sharing this information? 

Mr. PARKER. We often notify police chiefs, district attorneys, 

judges when we release individuals back into their communities. I 

would also say that I am not aware of a process in regards to a 

terrorist being released. I would have to defer to BOP to what their 

policy is on that. But an important point that I would point out is, 

knowing that that individual is back in your community is good, 

but I think we have an interest in knowing where that individual 

is at. 

I mean, again, we don’t require them to register. As far as I 

know, we don’t require them to register. I made this point earlier. 

There are some inmates that are released that we require to register, a database. We know when that individual moves to another 

town or moves to another area. Again, I think that needs to be 

looked at and needs to be considered, because it is important that 

we be able to track these individuals when they are released. 

Mr. LEVIN. If I could just interject one quick point. Here is another issue, and you are a former prosecutor. One of the things 
35 

that we have seen with regard to the prosecutions from, let’s say, 

2002 for the next several years—and that is why I brought up in 

the written testimony the different charges. The Justice Department right after 9/11, properly so, said, you know, we are not going 

to wait until plots come to fruition. We are going to interdict. That 

is the new strategy. 

What that has done is that has cast a wide net that has ensnared operational folks like the JIS people in southern California, 

who interestingly enough, were found because of just good local police work by the Torrance Police Department, and then they got the 

JTTFs involved, you know, the fusion centers. 

We have to make sure that we share information, but not every 

person that gets released is going to be of the same threat level because that net ensnared people who in some instances were just 

violently-talking imbeciles as opposed to operational folks who had 

a depth of motivation. That is something that is really important 

as someone who studies both hate and extremism. 

We have a matrix that involves how operational is someone, how 

connected and networked are they, and how shallow or deep are 

their hatreds? For instance, an article in Think Progress this summer talked about white Aryan prison gangs. They are among the 

most violent; and indeed, for instance, Aryan Brotherhood of Texas 

would kill their own members with lye and torture them with fire 

and things like that because they were criminal syndicates. 

But some of these groups will oftentimes partner up with other 

folks who are outside of their in-group because it is effective for 

drug dealing, for instance. So we have to look at both the violence, 

the type of violence, the depth. Because what we don’t want to do 

is inundate law enforcement with information that may or may not 

be specific to an actual terrorist threat. 

One other point with regard to information sharing that all my 

colleagues really have begged me to say, and that is, not only do 

we want to continue the information sharing, which has been relatively good in the post-9/11 period with the fusion centers and 

even between Federal law enforcement, but there are a lot of us 

who are former police officers, former FBI agents, who are in academia now who would love to get the opportunity to be able to do 

some kind of trend analysis but we don’t have access to prisons and 

prisoners. 

That might be something that we should look at, opening up for 

the appropriate people, local law enforcement as well as academia, 

to get information. Information is the life blood of what we are 

doing and in such a fluid situation. What I am telling you is my 

testimony might very well, along with my colleagues and friends 

here, be somewhat more irrelevant 8 months from now than it is 

today because of fluidity of the situation. 

When we do share information, what I think is important is that 

we have some kind of trained person vetting saying, okay, this person who has no criminal record and merely was ensnared with 

shallow hatreds and low operational efficiency is not the same as 

the JIS folks, and that is something that I think is important. But 

yes, you are completely correct. 

Mr. BARLETTA. Thank you. 

Mr. KING. Does the Ranking Member have any questions? 
36 

Mr. HIGGINS. No. 

Mr. KING. Recognize the gentleman from Rhode Island, Mr. Langevin. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would welcome our witnesses here today. Thank you for your 

testimony. It has been very informative. 

To the panel, we know that violent extremism is a global phenomenon, and we have seen incidents of radicalizations in prisons 

around the world. Can you describe similarities and differences between the prison environments in the United States and elsewhere, 

particularly Europe, and what elements might make the U.S. corrections system more or less likely to allow prisoners to radicalize? 

Mr. PARKER. I am not that familiar with the other correction environments in other countries. In America we have—a lot of facilities have set standards. The American Correctional Association 

sets best practices standards that a lot of facilities follow. So I feel 

like the conditions of confinement in America is pretty good. I believe they have access to the things they need. 

In regards to their living conditions, I think it is very acceptable. 

I think there is things that make up that correctional environment 

though that I have identified that could contribute to 

radicalization, and I have listed those. You know, I think we have 

to have a dual strategy where you have to have a security component and rehabilitative initiatives inside the facility. 

We have to do rigorous vetting and monitoring of prison chaplains and volunteers. I don’t think just a criminal background 

check is sufficient. I think we have to understand and know the 

message of people who come in, in the volunteer status to hold 

these services. 

We need to encourage positive inmate family social interaction 

and communication. I think that is a positive. Policies should encourage social science research. I think the gentleman here has testified to that. We are missing a point there where there is more 

work to be done and research inside of our facilities to detect those 

issues that might promote radicalization. 

Then provide staff training and developing intel networks with 

criminal justice partners. I think we have done a good job with 

that. The correctional intelligence initiative works well. It is a good 

framework. But it is very important to know that you have to train 

those people at that ground level, those correctional officers, those 

counselors, those people that deal with inmates every day, to first 

of all, recognize and understand what kind of threatening message 

we need to identify, what we need to look for, and how to pass that 

information on, where it can be properly vetted with the FBI and 

the Joint Terrorism Task Force. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you. 

Mr. BJELOPERA. Just a quick comment. One of the big successes 

in the post-9/11 era in terms of fighting terrorists in the United 

States was the expansion of Joint Terrorism Task Forces. Based on 

public information, it seems apparent that BOP and FBI work extensively on Joint Terrorism Task Forces, sharing information 

about what is going on inside and out of facilities. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you. 
37 

Mr. LEVIN. Can I tell you a joke I can’t use anymore? It used to 

be—and an FBI agent told me this. It used to be, what did the FBI 

agent say at the scene of a terrorism attempt? I would like to 

thank my local colleagues. We got it all under control as he 

screwed the light bulb into the faucet. I can say that because an 

FBI agent told me that. 

Now the level of cooperation is actually quite good. We have terrorism early warning groups, JTTFs, fusion centers. Again, the JIS 

case was an example of something that should happen in this context. The Torrance police uncovered some gas station armed robberies. These folks were operational. They were going to attack 

military institutions, National Guard, Jewish institutions, and 

Israeli targets, and they came across material and then got the 

whole regional consortium together. 

Put that back to the assassination of Meir Kahane when there 

was a lot of extremist material that was uncovered, but sat in 

boxes without being analyzed. So today things are definitely a lot 

better, and I would say that anything that this committee could do 

to encourage cooperation between law enforcement. 

But let me just say also, NGOs, we have folks in monitoring entities that are not Government-related and academia who I think 

would be a resource. Like, for instance, when we had a graduate 

student that was trying to study to make a typology of what was 

going on with post-9/11 extremists, it was very difficult to get information. 

Again, I want to make sure that I mention two things: First, our 

response has to be individually specific because we don’t have automatons that come out of like a white supremacist extremism factory or a Salafist jihadist extremism factory or an Animal Liberation factory. We have folks who, through a variety of networks, exposure to propaganda, and indeed personal dysfunctions, go into 

extremism for different reasons and in different depths. 

One of the things that we know about hatred and extremism, it 

is based on three things: No. 1, emotion. What is emotionally appealing about extremism to these folks? No. 2, they adhere to a belief system; and then No. 3, some kind of effective component, affective component, rather, where there is behavioral change. They 

can be different. 

What we want to make sure is that we get everybody involved 

in the matter. As Chairman King knows, even though we are both 

Mets fans, Bucky Dent got a hit in 1978. Nobody was looking at 

Bucky Dent and the Yankees got into the World Series. So we really have to be open with respect beyond ideology. 

Because some of the people that we are seeing—and this is something—some of the people that we are seeing go from a buffet of 

ideologies, and they become operational with their own idiosyncratic drivers. So it is not like everyone is in a tight box. So I think 

for that reason we have to involve the Joint Terrorism Task Forces 

with outside monitoring organizations and academia who could 

give them further insight. 

Because what we are seeing now is a very diffuse spectrum of actors that don’t fit in boxes. We might have someone tomorrow who 

commits an attack with multiple hatreds who does not fit one particular profile and may have had individuals strain exposures that 
38 

catapulted him or her to action. Most of them are male, though, 

however. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, I have other questions I will submit for the 

record, but thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. KING. Thank you. 

Before I recognize Mr. Keating, I would like to point out for the 

record, I was not expecting a home run off Jeurys Familia in the 

ninth inning last night either. That was as big a surprise as Bucky 

Dent. 

But in any event, as a Massachusetts man, let me introduce Mr. 

Keating. 

Mr. KEATING. I am disappointed in this Bucky Dent conversation, and, you know, if it wasn’t for the Fenway wall, maybe it 

wouldn’t have gone over there. But that is another sore subject of 

discussion. 

Mr. KING. Before you got here, they were commenting on how bipartisan we are and how we get along and now you are trying to 

interject a Red Sox/New York feud into this. It is really inappropriate for this committee. 

Mr. KEATING. Well, for a team that finished as low as ours did, 

this is rubbing real salt in the wound. But that is another topic of 

terrorism that we will talk about later. 

I just want to thank you for being here. But one of the things 

I am grappling with and looking at this issue is—and it is hard for 

a lot of prison programs to measure the effectiveness. But what 

kind of metrics could be used? Mr. Levin was just talking about 

how individualized this is, and it is not a great history right now. 

So I guess, I will ask just one question and include two threads: 

One is, what did we learn that wasn’t working when we were looking at some of the other programs that are functioning abroad; and 

No. 2, what kind of metrics would you be looking at so we can 

measure the need and the effectiveness of anything we do here? 

Because that is important as well. 

Mr. PARKER. In the research on the two programs that I looked 

at, and of course it was open-source and very hard to get information, and, again, you have to consider that information is open 

source and it is what they reported. So I understand the issues surrounding that. 

But, you know, they talked to—Saudi Arabia and Singapore both 

said that it was very important to have individuals who participated in the program as counselors who were recognized as legitimate. The detainees had to recognize these individuals as legitimate and could speak on the issue of the misinterpretation of the 

Quran in this case. That was basically the primary issue that they 

focused on as a must have for the program, along with the social 

support, the families, the community model they used after the inmate was released. 

As far as our metrics, you know, I am not sure how we would 

measure that. Again, we have to look at what are we doing now, 

and I think that is an important question. What are we doing now, 

and where do we want to go in the future? How do we take that 

first step to begin looking at a process to prepare these people to 

return? 
39 

I think also important is the risk assessment. Coming up with 

a validated risk assessment that we can use to target these individuals—or maybe not target them, but to look at them and to have 

some type of idea of what kind of programs they need, what kind 

of—is supervision possible once they are released from that correctional environment back into our communities? 

Mr. KEATING. What do we have in place now for like some of the 

domestic terrorist groups? Do we have programs in place now for 

skinheads, some of the other white supremacist-type groups? Is 

there applicability back and forth? 

Mr. PARKER. No, as far as challenging their mindset, the thought 

process, no, we track them. We basically track them in the correctional environment. There is anger management programs that 

they can be involved in, things like that. But no, there is no specific 

programs that target the ideology that they use. 

Mr. KEATING. Okay. Well, thank you, and it is important to look 

back at the past, even if it is painful with Bucky Dent. 

I will yield back to the Chairman, reminding him that there was 

a football game with the Jets recently and New England Patriots. 

It is good to be cautious of the present as well as the past. Thank 

you for taking the time here. 

Mr. LEVIN. If I may, I will take you to a game in Fenway. I have 

always wanted to take my son to a game at Fenway. So you have 

a deal. 

Just very briefly, Horgan and Braddock, who are two experts, observed that internationally these programs outside of the United 

States involved education, occupational assistance, mentoring, psychological assistance, and encouraging a shift to positive social networks away from extremists, for instance. 

In the United States, though, where large numbers of prisoners 

are dispersed across Federal and State institutions, 

deradicalization programs are not as focused or sophisticated as 

some of our smaller allies. But when they are modeled, they often 

are modeled, for instance, as my colleague Pete Simi pointed out, 

and Mr. Bubolz, they are often modeled off of ones that have been 

used in the gang and cult disengagement process, which may very 

well be effective. 

But, again, we are at the nascent stage of this, and we don’t have 

a lot of great data. Fifteen years ago there was something called 

Operation Grow Hair out of the central district of California’s U.S. 

Attorney Office, with regard to skinheads. We just don’t know how 

effective these programs are. Did these people not reoffend because 

of the program, or did they not reoffend because of other factors? 

Mr. KEATING. Yeah, I think we have to get a handle on the 

metrics. We can clearly look at other examples to see how effective 

that is. 

So again, I thank you. This has been very painful. You have gone 

from Bucky Dent to something called Operation Grow Hair. 

Mr. LEVIN. I will never be invited back. 

Mr. KEATING. So, I am going to lick my wounds, and I yield back. 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Bill. Thank you, Mr. Keating. 

I have two questions I would like to ask, one to Mr. Bjelopera: 

In the 2011 administration CVE strategy, they included a section 

on prison radicalization, which included goals for improved aware-
40 

ness of the risk of extremism in prisons, enhanced screening to 

identify inmates with extremist views, improve detection of recruitment efforts, and increased information sharing. 

The committee has done a lot of oversight over this 2011 strategy, and I don’t believe we found very much progress. But, are you 

aware of any progress toward these four goals in the U.S. prison 

system, and do you have any recommendations for the best approaches to address these areas? 

Mr. BJELOPERA. I am not aware of any progress. It doesn’t mean 

necessarily that there hasn’t been. I am just not aware of any 

progress from the public record. I would imagine that one of the 

things that the administration may consider is looking at more 

intervention in terms of prison radicalization and CVE in prisons, 

but I am not even sure if that is going on. 

Mr. KING. Okay. I would like to ask Professor Levin, I agree with 

everything you are saying about the skinheads, Nazis, Aryan Nation, and they are as malevolent and evil as anyone else, that is 

a concern I have. 

But the question I have is, those who are evil that existed prior 

to September 11. After September 11, whether it is the Department 

of Homeland Security or the Committee on Homeland Security, or 

even the NYPD which you are familiar with. You know that for 

years the NYPD was monitoring these extremist organizations, including certainly skinheads, I am aware of, and others; and yet 

after 9/11 they set up a special counterterrorism unit to deal with 

this unique form of Islamist terrorism. 

In the prison system, is there one system to address extremists 

or in view of the international dimension of the threat that comes 

from Islamic terrorism? Again they killed more people maybe than 

anyone who has come out of prison, but the potential of a mass disaster because of the international dimension of the Islamist threat, 

does that warrant, in effect, two different systems of monitoring 

radicalization in the prisons? 

Mr. LEVIN. They didn’t come out of the prison system though. He 

did not—— 

Mr. KING. No, no, I am just saying as far as the potential evil. 

I am not saying he came out of the prison. 

Mr. LEVIN. Oh, sure. Sure. 

Mr. KING. I am just saying that obviously there are cases where 

domestic radicals, domestic extremists can cause large casualties, 

no doubt about it. So I am not talking about really the extent of 

the evil. I am talking about the nature of the dimension and the 

international dimension that comes with Islamist jihadists. 

Mr. LEVIN. Sure. But, you know, there is an international dimension, for instance, to anti-Muslim violence. When I go to bed at 

night, I worry about an extremist shooting up a mosque in addition 

to worrying about a Salafist jihadist and in addition to worrying 

about all these other folks. 

Look, narcoterrorism has an international—— 

Mr. KING. But again, we go like to the NYPD, you are familiar 

with 2,000 people working on Islamist jihad in addition to what 

they are doing as far as the other radical groups. 

Mr. LEVIN. Right. But I would say, though, is that with regard 

to the risk of violence, for instance, narcoterrorism has an inter-
41 

national component. We are now seeing for instance in Israel the 

Israeli Government classifying Jewish extremists as terrorists and 

using their rules like that. We haven’t seen that yet come here. 

What I am saying is, I am concerned about the shots-on-goal that 

come from close to the goal, back at the end of the ice. 

So, if there is an international component, by all means, we don’t 

have to put blinders onto it. But the Animal Liberation world has 

an international component to it, for instance. You know, the violence actually in Europe with regard to the Animal Liberation people has been worse. 

So yes, if there is an international component, we shouldn’t put 

blinders on. What I am worried about is something where it is all 

Muslims all the time and we craft something that will be perceived 

in the Muslim community as being discriminatory and then lose 

some of our best allies in this. 

Some of the most wonderful people that I have worked in the 

counter extremism world, have been from the Muslim American or 

Arab American community, who are as concerned about this as others. So, yes, in the abstract, let’s, you know, let’s look where the 

bad guys my come from. Where I am worried about, if it is something that operationally either is overinclusive with respect to politically-protected speech, I am concerned. 

You know, look, we had a speaker come to our university who 

was friendly with two presidents of religious organizations at 

schools that were involved in plots over in Britain. I have chronicled an award-winning piece that I did for the intelligence report 

about a home-grown American Muslim extremist who go on college 

campuses and say all kind of things. 

However, the United States Supreme Court has said that abstract advocacy of violence is something that is Constitutionally 

protected, and it is separate from particularized incitement. Where 

the problem arises is when we have, I think, good people—I work 

with people in law enforcement. I love law enforcement. I am 

blessed to be the least successful law enforcement member of my 

family. 

But we have to be careful to not cast a wide net that would take 

folks who are merely political dissenters as opposed to people who 

are actually fomenting immediate calls to violence. In particular, if 

we concentrate merely on just one community. Because in Orange 

County, California, we had a recent case with an ISIS supporter 

who wrote a letter and said, ‘‘je suie,’’ not ‘‘je suis,’’ ‘‘je suie Al 

Qaeda.’’ You know who turned him in? His mother. So we want to 

make sure that we don’t alienate the very communities that we 

need to fight this effort. 

Mr. KING. I guess the difference is one of degree, because we do 

have organized crime bureaus, we have narcotics bureaus, which 

are different dimensions of attacks, different types of attacks. I just 

believe that Islamist jihadism is a separate form of threat to the 

United States and it doesn’t mean we should cut back on organized 

crime monitoring or going after narcoterrorists. 

But there is to me a unique dimension to the Islamist threat 

today, which is why the whole Department of Homeland Security 

was created, why the NYPD has set up a 2,000-person counterterrorism unit in New York because of the nature of it. They are still 
42 

looking at organized crime. They are still looking for skinheads. 

They are looking at the drug dealers, and they have separate units 

for all of those. 

But they also have a separate one for counterterrorism which is 

focused right now on the Muslim community in New York because 

that is where the threat comes. As they focused on the Italian community during the glory days of the Mafia and the Irish community 

during the days of the Westies and the west side of Manhattan. 

So I guess what I am saying, no one is saying go after Muslims, 

but I just think there is a unique dimension to that threat which 

has to be admitted and acknowledged without saying all Muslims 

are evil. When I had my hearings on Islamic radicalization, the key 

witnesses we had supporting my position were Muslims. 

So it is not that we are trying to demonize Muslims anyway, but 

that is where the threat is coming from, just as the threat from the 

Mafia came from the Italian American community and the threat 

from the Westies came from the Irish American communities. That 

is really the point I am making on that. 

Mr. LEVIN. Our center by the way, as I put in our testimony, our 

center regards the Salafist jihadist threat as the most profound 

threat facing our country today. But what I am concerned about is 

that not everyone is as well-versed in this area as you are, and 

there are people who will exploit this sliver. We have 2.7 million 

or more Muslim Americans in the United States who exploit the 

sliver for some kind of other agenda. 

We have in the United States, unfortunately, in the words of 

Fareed Zakaria, an Islamophobe industry. We see this on different 

things in the white supremacy world. Any time a Jew does something bad, it is a headline on Stormfront. Or anytime an African 

American, you know, spits on the sidewalk, it is a big thing on the 

neo-Nazi sites. All I am saying is we don’t operate in a vacuum, 

and we have to let law enforcement investigate where the problems 

are. 

When I was in the NYPD, we had an officer shot to death by a 

mobster, and we went crazy on the mob at that point. The Salafist 

jihadist threat represents the most profound terrorist threat to the 

United States right now. I acknowledge that. What I am concerned 

about is that there are not people who are as even-tempered as 

you—— 

Mr. KING. Wow, put that in the record. 

Mr. LEVIN. No, but, you know, you read this stuff every day. You 

know, let me just say, God bless this whole committee. God bless 

this whole committee and the bipartisanship that you have shown 

because my son’s safety depends on you. 

Unfortunately, there are people who exploit things. CNN did a 

whole thing where there were people who were not qualified who 

were Islamophobes who were giving trainings to law enforcement. 

You know, we have to make sure that the care that you have taken 

in getting people to come before your committee is exhibited by 

people in law enforcement. 

What sometimes happens is that we get—look, we get into a 

point where conservatives might feel that they are being targeted 

because we look at far right wing. What we have to do is approach 

it in a professional way that you have. We should definitely look 
43 

at the places where extremists are. That is how we break up these 

plots. 

But we also have to be careful that we understand that no extremist group has a monopoly and that we exert due care that we 

are not casting such a net as to exclude other types of extremists 

or people who are not, but yet hold politically differing views from 

the two of us. 

Mr. KING. Mr. Higgins. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Yes. Thank you again, Mr. Chairman. Thank you 

for this outstanding panel of witnesses. This has been a very, very 

enlightening experience and we appreciate it very much. 

Mr. Levin, in your testimony you had indicated that former FBI 

supervisor Dr. Carl Jensen, III, writing in this month’s American 

Behavioral Scientist that you coedited, forecasted over the next 5 

years terrorists will make increasing use of technology, forge new 

alliances and hybrid structures, and morph between politics, criminal enterprises, and even gangs. 

We on this committee have both a budgetary and oversight responsibility. We had mentioned, and I think they have been highly 

successful thus far, the fusion centers, the Joint Terrorism Task 

Force. So structurally, I think law enforcement post-9/11 has become more cooperative in the sharing of information intelligence, 

toward the goal of thwarting terrorist activity. 

Are the resources available to meet the new trends over the next 

5 years? If you can comment on that. 

Mr. LEVIN. Partly so. Again, one of the things I really think is 

important, you know, I reached out to folks in the counterterrorism 

community. These are heroes. I wrote to one saying, gosh, I am 

going before this committee, you know. He said, well, I am working 

from 2:00 in the morning until 10:00, you know, contact me. These 

are people who are 24/7 working on things. Here is some of the 

problems: I think we have to have alacrity in pivoting to different 

threats. Right now, as I said, our center regards the Salafist 

jihadist threat as the most prominent one, but it is a close call. 

You know, I remember before Oklahoma City people regarding 

the alarming rise of militias, most of whom, by the way, were nonviolent. But we are now seeing in society a splintering. There are 

so many angry, distrustful people. If you look at the polls of trust 

for Congress, of the media, of medicine, of academia, it has plummeted in recent decades. 

So people across a broad range can hook into a variety of antisocial and conspiratorial ideologies. If I may—and I hope I am not, 

you know, going to get disinvited for another hearing—we have to 

have that alacrity, and that includes if we have to look at the Animal Liberation people, let’s do it. But by the same token, there 

have been concerns that the investigations relating to far right— 

and I am not talking about considered people of good will, who I 

adore who are my closest friends, we have to have alacrity as the 

threats come up, because we are in such a fluid environment. 

If we can depoliticize it. Because, you know, one of the things 

that Attorney General Ashcroft, to his credit, who is vigorously opposed to abortion, he went after those violent people, who in very 

similar models to Salafist jihadists use faith and the internet to 

target people. 
44 

What I think we must do is have funding that is not only towards the Salafist jihadist threat, which I regard as the most 

prominent one, but also to collecting trend analysis on other 

threats, which many people have come to me off the record, say, 

hey, if you ever get to talk to a Congressman, say this. What they 

tell me—this isn’t me. This is people in law enforcement and intel 

saying, can we have a little bit more funding and alacrity to look 

at a variety of threats, particularly from the far right but also others as well. 

We might be talking about Jewish extremists next year because 

of what is going on in the Middle East. We might be talking about 

Palestinian extremism. It is a very fluid situation, and we have to 

have that alacrity to pivot to where the threat not only is today, 

but where it will be 18 months from now. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Yeah. See, you know, counterterrorism is all about 

what didn’t happen, and you rarely get credit for what didn’t happen. Fighting counterterrorism, the whole objective is keeping 

things from happening. Perhaps, you know, we are too reactive to 

the previous, or immediate threat and not visionary enough to have 

that fluidity to diversify our efforts to anticipate the emerging 

trends, because obviously that is going to be very, very important 

in our counterterrorism efforts as well. 

With that, I will yield back, thank you, sir. 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Brian. 

I am going to thank all the witnesses. This has been a terrific 

hearing. I want to thank you for your valuable testimony. I want 

to thank the Members for their questions. Also, the Members of the 

subcommittee may have additional questions for you, and so we 

would like to ask you to respond to those in writing if they do come 

in. 

Now pursuant to committee rule 7(e), the hearing record will be 

held open for 10 days. Without objection, the subcommittee stands 

adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:47 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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