CALIFORNIA — Recent arrests have focused attention on a potential terrorism danger that federal officials have been warning about - that inmates in state prison systems are particularly susceptible to radical Islamist ideology.
But prison officials across the nation say they so far have seen more potential for recruitment than real threats.
Counterterrorism officials said the danger is not in the number of adherents to radical Islam but in the potential for small groups of dedicated believers to commit terrorist acts after they are released.
Prison officials nationwide "are all sort of hearing the chatter" about efforts to recruit inmates to extremist ideologies, said Martin Horn, commissioner of the New York City Department of Corrections. He would not elaborate.
However, prison officials in other states, including Pennsylvania and Ohio, where Muslim inmates helped spark an 11-day fatal riot in 1993, said they have seen no signs of recruiting.
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