Exclusive new data obtained by Middle East Eye from UK social justice charity Maslaha has uncovered persistent, systemic disparities in how Muslim prisoners are treated across the UK prison system, raising urgent alarms about covert racial and religious discrimination ahead of the implementation of the 2026 Sentencing Act. Maslaha’s investigation combines official prison population data with firsthand testimonies from incarcerated Muslims to paint a clear picture of unequal treatment that has persisted for more than a decade despite repeated government pledges to reform the system. The charity’s findings show that Muslim prisoners, who make up just 18 percent of the UK’s total prison population, are disproportionately represented in disciplinary actions, harsher punishments, and restricted access to privileges, work opportunities and educational programming behind bars. Between January 2023 and December 2025, Muslims accounted for 23 percent of all disciplinary adjudications and 29 percent of all additional days added to prisoners’ sentences for rule violations, far outstripping their share of the overall prison population. Adjudications, the formal disciplinary process for rule-breaking inmates, can result in stripped privileges and up to 42 extra days added to a custodial sentence. Beyond disciplinary action, the data also shows Muslims fare worse than any other religious or belief group under the UK’s Incentives and Earned Privileges (IEP) scheme: they make up the largest share of prisoners placed in the lowest behavior categories, and are the least likely to earn enhanced privileges. This restricted access to privileges in turn blocks their eligibility for in-prison work and education programs, and is set to disproportionately harm their chances of qualifying for early release under the upcoming Sentencing Act reforms. Passed in January 2026 but not yet enacted, the new legislation is designed to address widespread prison overcrowding by introducing an “earned progression” model that allows fixed-sentence prisoners to earn early release, unless they have received extra days for rule violations. Maslaha’s research warns that because Muslims are already disproportionately targeted with disciplinary action and harsher punishments under existing policies, they will be systematically locked out of the early release opportunities the new law is meant to provide. The charity describes the systemic disparities as a “culture of covert discrimination”, and notes that existing schemes designed to regulate prisoner behavior have become vehicles for subtle but materially harmful racism and religious bias. Firsthand testimonies collected in the report underscore the daily impact of this bias. One incarcerated Muslim told the charity that the system automatically views Muslim inmates with heightened suspicion, a bias that is impossible to ignore during daily interactions. Another described the adjudication process as a “kangaroo court”, where punishments are routinely issued for accusations that cannot be proven. These disparities are not a new discovery: a 2014 review led by Lord Young also found that ethnic minority inmates received harsher punishments than white inmates even when involved in the same incidents, and that the privileges system systematically favored white prisoners. Mandatory equality measures were introduced after the 2014 review, but Maslaha’s research confirms that patterns of discriminatory treatment have continued unchanged despite these policy changes. In 2025, UK Prison Minister James Timpson publicly acknowledged that racism, sexual harassment and bullying had become normalized in UK jails, and announced a plan to overhaul what he called a “toxic culture of cover-up” among senior prison leadership. Yet the latest data confirms that the UK government has still not addressed the deep-rooted systemic racial discrimination that multiple studies over the last decade have repeatedly documented. Raheel Mohammed, director of Maslaha, emphasized that the report lays bare long-standing, troubling trends: Muslim men who are racialized face systematically harsher treatment, punishment and outcomes across the entire prison estate. Mohammed argued that the government is failing to meet its legal obligations under the Equality Act to assess and address the disparate equality impacts of new criminal justice policies, creating a high risk that Muslim and other racialized prisoners will be left even further behind once the new Sentencing Act enters into force. He added that while policymakers have prioritized solving prison overcrowding in recent reforms, they have failed to address the underlying problem of disproportionate sentence inflation that falls heaviest on ethnic minority incarcerated people. Mohammed called on the UK Secretary of State for Justice to open a review of core failures in the adult justice system, including the ineffectiveness of current oversight policies that have consistently ignored data documenting discriminatory outcomes. In response to the report’s findings, a UK Prison Service spokesperson stated that the service is committed to fair and equal treatment for all prisoners regardless of background, ethnicity or religious belief. The spokesperson added that prison staff are required to meet high standards of professional and personal conduct, that any form of misconduct will not be tolerated, and that non-compliance can result in disciplinary action. The spokesperson also noted that many different factors influence adjudication outcomes, and argued that conclusions cannot be drawn from Maslaha’s data in isolation.