The four men accused of plotting to blow up synagogues and shoot down a plane all did stretches in state prisons - a major breeding ground for Islamic radicalization.
At least two of the suspects, James Cromitie and Onta Williams, entered the system as Baptists and were paroled as Muslims.
The concern about prisons incubating jihadists has been heightened in the debate over releasing Guantanamo terror suspects to facilities across the U.S.
FBI Director Robert Mueller has called America’s prisons “fertile ground for extremists.”
A 2006 study called “Out of the Shadows” found “tight-knit communities of Muslims in prison are ripe for radicalization, and could easily become terrorist cells.”
In New York State prisons, radicalization “is not a big problem, but we are being vigilant to ensure that it does not become a big problem in the system,” said Erik Kriss, spokesman for the state Department of Correctional Services.
Kriss said there is zero tolerance for radical religious teachings, and there have been two incidents involving radical Muslim preaching in recent years. One Muslim chaplain was fired shortly after 9/11.
The harshness of life behind bars “can be a radicalizing experience,” said Robert Gangi, executive director of the Correctional Association of New York, an advocacy group.
“A lot of inmates convert to Islam - or Christianity. Most people in upstate prisons are not politicized, but they can be when they see injustice, and use their time to develop a political outlook.”
Still, he said, there is not a lot of concern about people being radicalized to the point that they become terrorists.
Salahuddin Mustafa Muhammad, imam at Masjid al-Ikhlas Islamic Learning Center of Orange County, the Newburgh mosque where the suspects sometimes worshiped, said Muslims behind bars are not being radicalized.
“They’re not being taught to hate anyone. They’re taught not to hate themselves,” said Muhammad, a prison chaplain since 1985 who worked his entire career at the Fishkill Correctional Facility - the same prison where Cromitie spent a year in the early 1990s, coming out a Muslim.
The imam said he didn’t remember Cromitie from Fishkill and knew him only from the mosque as an occasional visitor.
The NYPD‘s Intelligence Division maintains a liaison with correction facilities in the city and state to gauge possible radicalization activities.
In 2006, city correction officials created a specialized intelligence unit on Rikers Island to stop fanatics before they can indoctrinate others.
Inmates at the city jail are usually there for no more than a year, so there’s little opportunity to convert, indoctrinate and radicalize others, a veteran correction officer said.