We don’t know details yet of the murder of a woman at Vaughan Foods — an Oklahoma distribution center — by a co-worker, but we do know that it was a beheading and we do know the alleged suspect — Alton Nolen, 30 — was a new convert to Islam.

We also know that other workers at Vaughan say the suspect had tried to convert them to that religion.

Some MSM outlets are emphasizing that the suspect was recently fired (it’s workplace violence, doncha know?), but the number of firings that lead to revenge beheadings is minuscule. In fact, I don’t know of any previous. But we don’t have to look too far back, not more than a day or two, to find a popular motivation for beheadings in general — jihad.

Was Nolen motivated by jihad or workplace revenge or a cocktail of both? Probably both. He had a checkered past. He had been convicted in January 2011 of “multiple drug offenses, assault and battery on a police officer and escape from detention,” according to state records. He was released from prison in March 2013.

We don’t know the extent to which Nolen’s conversion to Islam occurred in prison, although it is highly likely most of it did. This is surely worth investigating. Such conversions are a monumental powder keg in the process of going off. From Wikipedia:

J. Michael Waller claims that Muslim inmates comprise 17-20% of the prison population in New York, or roughly 350,000 inmates in 2003. He also claims that 80% of the prisoners who “find faith” while in prison convert to Islam.[1] These converted inmates are mostly African American, with a small but growing Hispanic minority.[2] Waller also asserts that many converts are radicalized by outside Islamist groups linked to terrorism, but other experts suggest that when radicalization does occur it has little to no connection with these outside interests.[3][4][5]

Oh, really? Or should I say, “What difference does it make?” Those “other experts” are being naïve or tendentious. It’s not as if the Islamic extremist playbooks are a secret. They are the basic texts of the religion itself, studied by all adherents in or outside prison, in large groups or by themselves. These same texts call for the extermination or, at best, dhimmitude of the infidel who does not convert. So the behavior of the ummah is regulated across borders. You don’t have to be a card-carrying member of ISIL to know how to behead. Anyone can do it.

This makes our prisons veritable training grounds — petri dishes, if you will — for fanatic killers of the type of the Oklahoma suspect, not to mention recruitment centers for whatever murderous Islamic sect happens to be in vogue that week or month. The only difference between New York and Oklahoma prisons would be one of scale.



A Justice Department report criticized the prison system for “failing to protect against ‘infiltration by religious extremists’”. But that report was way back in 2004. The situation is unquestionably much worse now.

Furthermore, the report exonerated “radical chaplains,” placing the blame on “extremist inmates running worship services.” I’m skeptical. The entire system must be examined, including every chaplain. The New York State system had a chaplain (Imam Warith Deen Umara) who praised the September 11 attacks. The Oklahoma beheading makes a complete public investigation mandatory.

The more difficult question, however, is what to do after the investigation, if the results are as they seem. Banning Islam from our prisons for inciting violence might backfire in a way that would engender even more conversions. Still, jihadism in it essence advocates the violent overthrow of the U.S. government, with which it is incompatible. Should we allow such a thing inside prison? The conventional answer is to seek out “moderate” Islamic chaplains to counter the extremists. But where are such people and, more specifically, where have they been? Other than the extraordinary Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, the outspoken moderates are an extremely scarce commodity.

Nevertheless something must be done now to prevent our prisons form becoming Jihad Factories. They’re already more than halfway there.

UPDATE: The following response came into me at Twitter regarding the question in the title – Have our prisons become Jihad Factories?