Today's inmate, tomorrow's terrorist

US prisons are becoming a hotbed for indoctrinating inmates and turning them into radical Muslims, US lawmakers were told yesterday in the second of a series of controversial hearings. This is bad news because this generation of inmates, if they escape or are released, could in time wind up back behind bars for terrorism. As if the rate of reoffending wasn't bad enough, outside influences access those on the inside, and inmates reach from the inside out. Individuals and groups that subscribe to radical Islamic ideology have made sustained efforts to target inmates for indoctrination. A solution to this problem would be to have separate prisons for Muslims and non-Muslims. Or, because segregation is a breach of civil rights legislation, a better solution to keep these outside influences from reaching the prisons could be to tear a leaf from Guantanamo's book and maybe play the Sesame Street or Barney theme tune over and over 24/7 on the prison intercom. Or maybe there should be more use of alternatives to prison like fines or community service (or maybe bringing back judicial corporal punishment) to reduce the chance of a not-so-serious offender becoming a potential terrorist on release.