Young criminals put on watchlist after expressing extremist views behind bars
PRISON bosses in control of the state’s youngest criminals have put seven children on a special security watch list after they expressed extremist views — including two who weren’t even jailed for terror offences.
NSW
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PRISON bosses in control of the state’s youngest criminals have put seven children on a special security watch list after they expressed extremist views — including two who weren’t even jailed for terror offences.
The Daily Telegraph can reveal some teenagers on the list are as young as 16.
And the two teens who were put on the watchlist despite being behind bars on non terror-related offences were added after guards caught them expressing extremist views.
NSW Counter-Terrorism and Corrections Minister David Elliott said these two teens were not radicalised behind bars but rather had entered the prison system already harbouring violent extremist beliefs.
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“Their behaviour from day one has drawn the attention of authorities, which is why they’ve been given the designation,” he said.
The other five teenagers are in juvenile detention on terror charges, meaning they automatically qualified for the watchlist. Mr Elliott said having seven children on the National Security Interest designation was a “very sombre sign of the times”.
“There’s a growing number of young people being radicalised,” he said. “In the past there’s been limited appreciation for how young these people with extremist behaviour can be. In the UK they’re monitoring children as young as 12.”
The young men on the list are separated from each other, with all of their mail scanned and all their phone conversations recorded.
Their visitors must go through criminal history checks and extra security is put in place when they are moved.
And when they are transferred to an adult prison — which happens from age 18 to 21 — they will remain on the watch list, and subject to the same tough security measures.
The teenagers are all male and serving time at Frank Baxter or Cobham Juvenile Justice Centres. They have been put on the list since the system was introduced in May. There have been anti-radicalisation courses in juvenile detention in NSW for several years.
The NSI designation was introduced with additional training for officers to identify extremist behaviour as well as upgrades to CCTV to assist with intelligence gathering.
Since the system was introduced in adult prisons in 2015 there have been 22 inmates given the designation.
There are several other tough monitoring scheme in place in adult prisons for inmates on terror charges.