Something to think about: Abdul Hakim Muhammad and the Gitmo detainees

Within conservative circles, the focus surrounding Abdul Hakim Muhammad, the Army Requiter Killer, has mosty been about the media's unequal treatment of his story versus George Tiller's killer. Tiller's story was sensationalized within minutes, while the details of Muhammed deliberately remain sketchy and obscure. While this battle over media bias rages on, I would like to focus on another question. Could the radicalization of Abdul Hakim Muhammad be the fate that awaits us should be start bringing Gitmo detainees here?

Some liberals are arguing that our Supermax prisons are more than equip to handle the task of holding Gitmo detainees. To a certain degree, they are correct, however our Supermax prisons were never designed to jail political or radical thoughts. Bringing radicalized Islamic Gitmo prisoners to the US, runs the risk of spreading their ideas on our soil.

While looking into Supermax prisons, I came across this article about the psychological effects of Supermax confinement:

A study by Craig Haney (2003), who researched conditions at Pelican Bay's Security Housing Unit (SHU), evinced that the psychological effects of supermax confinement can induce appetite and sleep disturbances, panic attacks, anxiety, uncontrollable rage, hallucinations, and self-mutilations, some of which occur from the extreme sensory deprivation of such conditions. (It has been speculated that one of the factors behind the Kingston Penitentiary riot in 1971 was that prisoners were restricted from "personalizing" their cell-space, or decorating their living environments, creating an environment akin to sensory deprivation or loss of control.) In addition to Hane'ys medical symptoms there are subtler cognitive, attitudinal, or homeostatic alterations incurred. Below is a comprehensive inventory of the documented effects from psychiatric reports and research into supermax confinement:

negative attitudes
insomnia
social withdrawal
hypersensitivity
ruminations (compulsive preoccupations, duress, or strain produced by indecision)
paranoia
hallucinations
self-mutilations
hopelessness
a sense of impending doom
suicidal ideation and suicide attempts
aggression.

After reading this, two quick thoughts emerge. First, for all of the complaints many on the left have about the conditions of Gitmo, it seems odd that some of them are eager to subject the Gitmo detainees to these effects (but that is for another blog post). Second, doesn't these effects sound like excellent precursors for creating homegrown Islamic extremists?

It is no secret that conversion to Islam takes place throughout our prison system. Some statistics show 1 in 10 inmates convert, with about 1 in 5 keeping up with it once released. Given these statistics, why would we want to add prisoners to our prison system that are radicalized to the point where they have already engaged in Jihad in Iraq? Even the much talked about Uighurs seem to have an ax to grind.

As Abdul Hakim Muhammad's story slowly unfold and as we grow closer to the arbitrary closing date of Gitmo's, let us keep the possible connection of the two in mind.