This looks like good news, and I hope it is, but I’m not sure. From the Washington Times:
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons, criticized in May for allowing a shortage of Muslim chaplains to threaten prison security and increase the potential for terrorism, has taken “important steps” in correcting the problems, a report said yesterday.
Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine said the bureau had either closed or resolved all but three of 16 recommendations made to correct problems in the selection, screening and supervision of Muslim chaplains, contractors and volunteers who work with 9,000 Muslim inmates.
Two months ago, Mr. Fine said that without sufficient Muslim chaplains on staff, inmates were more likely to lead their own religious services, distort Islam and espouse extremist beliefs. The “presence of extremist chaplains, contractors or volunteers … can pose a threat to institutional security and could implicate national security if inmates are encouraged to commit terrorist acts against the United States,” he added.
There’s that distorted Islam again. What Mr. Fine leaves out of this is the fact that it was the chaplains — like the notorious Warith Deen Umar who said that most Muslims privately cheered 9/11 — who were (in his view) “distorting” Islam. So getting chaplains in again is not going to fix the problem. They have to get in the right kind of chaplains: ones who explicitly renounce violent jihad. Has he found them?