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David [not his real name] is British. He converted to Islam more than a decade ago. In the mid 2000's he was taken to prison due to breach of the control order, placed on him.

A control order is "an order against an individual that imposes obligations on him for purposes connected with protecting members of the public from a risk of terrorism." Its power is provided under UK's Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005.

"Because of the unreasonable nature of the conditions there were inevitable breaches and because of that I ended spending six months in prison. At the time the detainees in high-profile cases were being held in Belmarsh prison," David told Sputnik.

The prison was fairly full. A lot of Muslims were there too. I've also spend a few weeks in HM Prison Wandsworth, which is a lower-category prison, before being moved to HM Prison Belmarsh. So I have seen it from both sides – lower category and high security prisons, where there are a lot of Muslims and prisoners on more terrorism-related offenses.

Depending on your category, you have a different number of people in the cell. If you are a Category A prisoner - which many terrorism suspects are - you are in a one-man cell. If you are moved down to category B status, then normally you are in a 3-men cell. The cells are the same size but the number of beds is different.

Category A prisoners are strip-searched almost everywhere they go – during visitations, going from one part of the prison to the other, leaving or returning from court. The security measures are much more stringent and they include oral searches.

The daily routine would be: everyone goes to the communal area for breakfast but then you have to return to your cell almost straight away. Then around 10 o'clock in the morning you have exercise, and there will be about an hour of walking around in circles in the yard, as long as the weather is good.

After that it's likely you would spend the rest of the day in your cell, apart from going out to get lunch and dinner. Around 6 or 7 o'clock in the evening, you have 1,5 -2 hours of association, where all of the cells in the wing are left open and everyone is allowed to talk and mingle. It doesn't happen every day though, only two or three times a week, depending on staffing levels. I've heard it has gone down now even more due to cuts. That's you average day.

If you can manage to get on some sort of program, like an English course or gym time, you can potentially get out of your cell between lunch and dinner time. It is very hard to get on a program because spaces are limited and it's underfunded. You have to keep putting in requests over and over again for extended periods of time to get on any course.

As a Muslim, you get to attend the Friday prayers [Jumma]. It's the only time during the week when all Muslim prisoners from every wing get to see each other. Usually it lasts about 40 minutes in the middle of a Friday.

For the most part, the majority of your days look like 23 hours/day in the cell, on your own. When you are in your cell, the only way people can really communicate is with the people in neighboring cells. There are these big, fat heating pipes that run through the cells and you can shout through them to the cell next to you and have some sort of conversation.

You are basically talking through a wall to a person next to you.

Certainly there is a comradery and safety – being in some sort of group behind bars. And that goes for everybody. As soon as you get into prison you have groups of guys who know each other from similar crimes and other things. Nobody wants to be alone in prison. It is not a good position to be in.

Muslims tend to form close bonds together and look out of each other, in case someone tries to cause problems for them. That's standard practice in prisons.

Most of the detainees in Belmarsh are awaiting trial and everybody is well aware that everything they do and say is monitored. If they are seen as radicalizing somebody, it can influence their case.

You do see people talking about religion and politics. In 8 months, I never saw anyone encourage others towards jihad or political violence. I know for a fact that some of them believed in those things, but they weren't stupid enough to expose themselves, while being monitored 24/7.

Sometimes, simple religious discussions among Muslim prisoners would be misinterpreted by guards - who had very little understanding of the religion – as radicalization or extremism. When in reality, it was none of that, as I saw. But there was a lot of discussion about religion, purifying yourself and being a better person.

In case of my fellow prisoner, a non-Muslim lad started chatting to him and they became friends, as often happens in prisons. And the non-Muslim guy actually became Muslim. The Muslim prisoner then – during his trial in court – was accused by guards of radicalizing people while awaiting trial. He then had to bring evidence that he simply spoke to a fellow prisoner about Islam and the latter had made his own decision to convert. There was no radicalization and they never discussed on jihad.

Among the Muslim prisoners there was always a sense of a double standard on the part of the guards and it's something that fuels problems in prison. For example, during Ramadan another prisoner came to my cell to pray together.

The guards came to our cell and were basically shouting at us during the prayer, threatening to drag him out. They didn't end up doing it but they were screaming at us all the way through the prayer. They would scream: "Stop it! You are not allowed to be in each other's cells."

At the same time, every night the "white racists" would gather in one cell, play loud music and smoke – sometimes drugs. The guards would completely let it slide, they wouldn't care. So there was a perception among the Muslim prisoners that there was a two-tier rule system. Muslims weren't allowed to pray or sit together in one cell, but those guys – were.

The prison service in this country is vastly underfunded the guards are not really in control beyond keeping inmates in prison.

There are drugs coming into prisons, mobile phones are easily available. The prison system in this country is a joke because there has been a severe lack of funding.

Most prisoners roll tobacco because it is cheaper. In regards to mobile phones, the most common method to smuggle them in is through "the back passage" if you like, without being too blunt about it. Mobile phones were very common in prison when I was there.

Drugs as well: from Class A, such as cocaine, to weed. From what I hear, it hasn't changed much since.

My first day in prison I was terrified, as my only experience with crime or prisons would be movies like Shawshank Redemption or American History X. On my first social, there was a large table with one man sitting and everyone else standing around him. He beckoned me over and I walked towards him, thinking "That's it, they will take my staff or hurt me."

He then said in a thick Russian accent that he saw me on the news and that "they say you want to blow this country up." At this point, I was literally sh***ng myself, thinking that if say no, I would look weak. If I said yes, I would incriminate myself in something I haven't done.

So I put the bravest face I could and just said: "Yeah, that's what they say." He laughed at me because he saw how scared I was. He then said that if anyone gave me trouble, I should come see him. I never saw him after that because I got moved.

That was my introduction to prison. You don't know what to expect until you get there.

With regards to gangs and gang-violence, you have to remember that prison is not like the outside world. Even calm, non-violent people are forced to put up a front and be aggressive just so they won't get bullied and their stuff won't be taken away. That's how prison life is.

People form little groupings because no one wants to be left on their own. Because of the Muslim brotherhood and comradery that comes from a shared faith, Muslim prisoners would tend to form the largest groupings. So you might have five guys from south London, or a couple of white gangsters from Essex but basically everybody who attends Jumma – whether they are in prison for extremism or gun-related crimes – there is a certain unwritten rule they will look out for each other, even across the divides of Sunni and Shia Muslims.

At Jumma prisoners would talk and also discuss who did what, who assaulted whom. There was a time when a white racist guy beat up an Afghan refugee really badly - who was a young kid, a skinny guy.

The attacker got assaulted the next day. They put him in another wing and he was assaulted there as well. And it happened again in another wing. After that they put him in a secure wing – where the put police officers, pedophiles and other at-risk prisoners – and he even got assaulted there by some Iraqis.

Those Iraqis were placed in the secure unit because they had been attacked by other Muslims for doing an honor killing, which is a sin and has nothing to do with Islam. So these Iraqis were assaulted by other Muslims for what they had done to their own families. But even these Iraqis still beat up the white racist guy.

Because I'm white and at the time I didn't have a beard, the white prisoners would talk about the comradery in front of me, saying "these Muslims they all stick together, you can't do anything."

The fact of the matter is – prison is a "dog-eat-dog world."

I am not violent at all, I've never committed a crime and I've been found innocent of everything I was accused of. But in prison if you don't defend yourself, people will abuse you and take liberties with you. The response of the Muslim brothers in prison was to make it completely unpalatable for such attacks.

Every now and again, some people would push it. There was another incident where a guy would make pig noises during the call to the daytime prayer. They do the call out the window so that Muslim prisoners know it's time to pray, but only during daytime and not at night time or during dawn prayers.

Another inmate came to my cell and told me to go with him. I didn't know where we were going. We went to the cell of the prisoner who made the pig noises.

The guy I went with told this inmate: "What you are doing is very disrespectful. You know we don't eat pork, we don't like pigs. We are not trying to be disrespectful, show some respect to us." The other guy replied "Whatever, whatever, bloody Paki."

After association the next day he was making pig noises again. The day after that in the yard, when this guy was on his own, everyone rushed and beat the hell out of him until the alarm went off. I was just shocked by what happened. Other white guys just scattered. That was the end of that. But that's how prisons are - things are dealt with very quickly by the law of the jungle.

Violence between the non-Muslim and Muslim prisoners can escalate very quickly. They would use the sunflower oil from tuna, which you are allowed to buy, add sugar, boil it and throw it in each other's faces.

I don't blame the prison staff, theirs is an incredibly hard job and they are given no time or respect by society. But when the rule of jungle applies, people will do what they need to do in order to survive.

Muslim chaplains have a certain amount of respect from the prisoners and are generally liked. They are needed to get you your Quran and prayer mats; to arrange Friday prayers and possibly to discuss certain things.

But they are also seen as part of the prison establishment, and as being there to change your mind and tell on you, if you try to talk about certain things. While there is a certain amount of respect and cordial relationship, the primary concern of prisoners is that nothing goes wrong in their upcoming trial. They are unlikely to open up to imams about anything other than benign issues.

In theory you can get one-on-one sessions with imams but it is very hard. The chaplains are not on site much and they're not well-funded. More often you can get a 'listener' – a prisoner form the wing, who had basic training. You get a chance to sit down and talk to them.

Once a person is convicted, they are more likely to say whatever they want. In certain prisons there is open hostility between Muslims and racists. Those who are in prison for the long haul would take strong measures to look after the people on shorter stays.

There was a quite a spate of attacks between Islamophobic far-right people and Muslim prisoners, who were in the same wing. Attacks were going back and forth between them. In the long-stay prisons it gets worse.

According to the prison's official description, detainees at HMP Belmarsh are offered regular access to education, workshops, and gym activities.

A comprehensive detoxification and drug support service is also available to all prisoners, "with good community links offering continuity of care post release."

"Prisoners are offered help to resettle effectively by a range of voluntary and statutory agencies who provide support within the following strands: Accommodation; Education, Training, and Employment; Health; Drugs and Alcohol; Children and Families; Finance, Benefit, and Debt; Attitudes, Thinking, and Behaviour; Victims of Domestic Violence; Victims of Sex Work. A local 'Reducing Reoffending Strategy' pulls together all of the many teams delivering this strand work.

"A listener scheme for prisoners at risk from suicide or self-harm is in operation.

"A foreign national support group is in operation for prisoners with the Detention Advice Service providing advice on immigration law."

After you get released – in my personal experience and for many people – it gets very isolating. People from the community know what you have been through and generally they will pull away. Due to the climate of fear around these issues, it makes it hard for mosques and the communities to engage with you because there is a fear of guilt by association.

For example, if they spend time with you, they will be accused of being complicit with your thoughts in some ways. We constantly see organizations smeared by association with people who are deemed troublesome.

So if you are a convicted terrorist or somebody who has been in prison for terror-related offenses – whether you were found innocent or not – the fear of guilt by association spreads through the community.

In a few more progressive communities there have been good examples of best practice, where imams and the communities from the grassroots level got on board with mentoring, discussing and shaping someone's views, leading them down the right path.

Those are much more productive and effective methods of "deradicalization" than the Prevent program, since they engage former detainees with people they generally respect.

What is missed out completely is looking at the political angle and the source of person's discontent: how legitimate frustrations about foreign policy can be channeled in a positive way that helps society and gives people an avenue to express it.

Since I've been out of prison, I've had lots of encounters with authorities. Last year, as we were trying to take a ferry to Dover to go abroad to see my in-laws, my entire family - including my young children - were held in a police cell for six hours. They still harass me and my family regularly, even though I was completely exonerated.

They still harass me and my family regularly, even though I was completely exonerated.

There is a fundamental misunderstanding with what they are trying to apply Prevent to.

They are using incorrect, outdated academia and in its very core, Prevent approaches the problem in a very back to front way. Also, the community is not involved from the beginning. Prevent ends up being a payday for practitioners and a box-ticking exercise for the people put through it.

Either people refuse to engage with Prevent flat out, or they go through the process and give the answers to questions that are frankly so obvious and ridiculous – that you would have to be a moron not to tick the right boxes and "pass" the process. The practitioners in the scheme by and large have no credibility in the Muslim community. The people they are trying to engage see them as sell-outs and not "proper" Muslims. I don't agree with that but it's the common perception.

Another problem with Prevent and the way prison guards are handled is that you are asking people who are unqualified in Islam – politically or theologically – to spot radicalization after an hour-long training session.

My auntie is a teacher and she had to go through Prevent training and even though she still didn't know what conservative Islamic belief is. It is unreasonable to make that request of people.

A simple example would be - music in Islam. It has been debated between the conservative and the Sufi branches for 400-500 years. It goes backwards and forwards and it has never been firmly settled. Some people refuse to listen or play musical instruments because they follow a slightly more conservative branch of Islam but other people believe it's in fact a spiritual activity.

Now, a non-Muslim, who has probably never heard of Sufism or Salafism, has no basis to judge this sort of religious disagreement. But when a practitioner deals with a five-year old child who refuses to play a musical instrument and is asked to judge whether the kids is radicalized or not – that's a problem right there.

Many Muslims I know tell their kids that if anyone in school asks them about religion or politics, to say 'I don't know.'

They are scared to have political opinions because they are being policed now.