The San Diego Union-Tribune picked up an Associated Press story that reads:

the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks have brought new scrutiny to Muslim inmates, many of whom are black men focused on surviving incarceration. While prison chaplains of various denominations argue that Islam offers a spiritual path to rehabilitation, others say it has the potential to turn felons into terrorists. The FBI calls prisons "fertile ground for extremists"....

Ever since the 2002 arrest of Jose Padilla, a felon and American Muslim convert who authorities say planned a "dirty bomb" radiological attack after he left jail, law enforcement officials, politicians and even a few evangelical leaders have warned that Muslim inmates are ripe for terrorist recruitment....

Chaplains describe the typical inmate convert as a poor, black American upset about racism, not Mideast politics; someone who turned to Islam to cope with imprisonment....

In September 2003, FBI supervisory special agent Andrew Black told a conference for correctional officers in Ohio that there have been no documented cases of U.S. inmates joining al-Qaeda in prison. Asked if that was still the case now, an FBI spokesman in Washington said the agency could not comment.