LA could get unit to counter extremism behind bars

L.A. County is looking to beef up its apparatus for countering violent extremism by creating a unit to root out radicals behind bars.

The department has applied for a $500,000 two-year grant from the Department of Homeland Security to fund a two-person unit that would look for signs of violent religious and political radicalization within L.A.'s jail population, said L.A. County Sheriff's Captain Joseph Dempsey. 

"Oftentimes disenfranchised individuals are the ones who are radicalized," Dempsey said. "And you know, you probably can't be more disenfranchised than being in jail."

At the moment, the sheriff's department has internal investigators who deal with jail safety issues, like gang conflicts, but there is no unit focused on identifying and intervening with potentially radicalized inmates. 

In Europe, jails and prisons have become notorious grounds for breeding jihadis. In the U.S., that has not been the case. A 2015 Congressional report found only one case since 9/11 of a convicted jihadi terrorist radicalizing while behind bars.

That was in 2005, when Kevin James, Levar Washington, Gregory Patterson, and Hammad Samana were arrested for "potting to attack targets in the Los Angeles, CA area, including synagogues, the Israeli Consulate," and Los Angeles International Airport, according to the Congressional Research Service, which compiled the report.

According to the report, James and Washington met behind bars in a California state prison.

While jihadism has not been well documented in jails and prisons in the U.S., other forms of radicalism have, Dempsey said, citing white power gangs like the Aryan Brotherhood, a notorious California prison gang, as an example.

The unit, he said, would focus on all kinds of radicalism, whether political or religious in nature. 

"We have some intelligence that this is happening in jails," he said. "And if it's happening anywhere, it's in Los Angeles, with the biggest jail system in the nation."

Deputy Barry Poltorak said the unit would focus on intervention and rehabilitation. 

DHS is expected to announce grant recipients in the late fall.