Mobile UPI  |   About UPI  |   UPI en Español  |   UPI Arabic  |   UPIU  |   My Account
Search:
Go

Low recidivism among Iraqi detainees

|
|
 
  
Published: May 20, 2008 at 9:09 AM

BAGHDAD, May 20 (UPI) -- The majority of Iraqi detainees in U.S. custody at major prison facilities near Baghdad can be reintegrated into society, U.S. officials said Tuesday.

"Our goal, really, is to release all of those who are no longer an imperative security risk," said U.S. Marine Maj. Gen. Douglas Stone, the top official in charge of detainee affairs in Iraq.

About 20 percent of Iraqis in U.S. custody are from insurgent groups fighting Iraqi and U.S. forces but many defense analysts say the nature of unconventional warfare makes it difficult to distinguish between enemy and foe, USA Today said.

"We have swept up and detained a very large number of potential enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the reality of those wars is we don't really know who we're holding," defense analyst Loren Thompson with Virginia's Lexington Institute told USA Today.

Detainees receive vocational training at the prisons to prepare them to function in society upon their releases and U.S. officials say the recidivism rate is less than 1 percent.

U.S. officials release detainees at a rate of about 53 per day and say the number of detainees is down to 22,000 from 26,000 in 2007, the newspaper said.

Topics: Douglas Stone, Loren Thompson
© 2008 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

Order reprints
  
Join the conversation
Most Popular Collections
Notable deaths of 2012 Scripps National Spelling Bee AmfAR Cinema Against AIDS gala
Indianapolis 500 Presidential Medal of Freedom Memorial Day around the nation
Additional Top News Stories
1 of 20
Singer Janelle Monae arrives at the 2012 MTV Movie Awards in Universal City, California
View Caption
Singer Janelle Monae arrives for the MTV Movie Awards at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal City, California. UPI/Jim Ruymen
fark
Man turns dead pet cat into remote-controlled helicopter, calls it art (w/WTF pics)
"Good News" clubs teach children in public schools the Biblical importance of killing all nonbelievers...
Five arrested in prostitution sting. Article lists their names, ages and distance from a church
Photoshop this power tower technician
Driving drunk and unlicensed, with a kid not even buckled let alone in a safety seat, en route to...
Man killed in Spencer fire. The lava lamps must have ignited the blacklight posters