Counter-terrorism

(asked on 7th February 2020) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what plans his Department has to restructure the counter-terrorism programme.


Answered by
Lucy Frazer Portrait
Lucy Frazer
Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
This question was answered on 17th February 2020

Following the two recent attacks at Fishmongers’ Hall and HMP Whitemoor, the Government announced a package of funding and legislative changes, including major investment in counter terrorism resources in prisons and probation, which is overseen by the Joint Extremism Unit (JEXU) a joint Home Office and Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation (HMPPS) unit.

The package of measures include:

  • Tougher sentences for the most serious terrorist offenders, which will mean dangerous terrorist offenders who receive extended determinate sentences serve their entire sentence

  • Doubling the number of Counter-Terrorism specialist probation staff. These specially trained staff will deliver a set of new, intensive national standards for managing terrorists on licence;

  • These new standards will mean terrorists are subjected to closer monitoring and reporting requirements.

  • An increase in the resources dedicated to training front-line prison and probation staff and;

  • The introduction of polygraph testing.

  • An independent review of our Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA).

Following the attack on 2 February in Streatham, the government announced emergency legislation to ensure an end to terrorist offenders getting released automatically, having served half of their sentence with no check or review.

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