By Debbie Schlussel

**** SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE ****

This morning when I read this story, I thought to myself, Yeah, and the Gitmo Islamic terrorists won’t do this when they get to our jails? Riiiight.

Yes, Harry Reid and the Democrats are now reversing themselves and refusing to fund the closing of the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay because they now claim that they don’t want terrorists on U.S. soil. But that wasn’t their position for the last 6 years. It changed quickly, and it can change back just as quickly.

And if terrorists do get to U.S. soil and our prison system, they won’t be any different than the convicted Islamic terrorists in SuperMax, who recruited terrorists from their jail cells. And they won’t be any different from the Bloods (okay, so there are no Crips in this story, but same difference). If the Bloods can do this, so can the Islamic “Bloods,” formerly of Gitmo.

The Bloodz & the Gitmoz . . .

Violent gangs are thriving behind New Jersey’s prison walls and the Department of Corrections isn’t doing enough to stop them, according to a report released today by the State Commission on Investigation.

Investigators said jails are like a “branch office” for gang members who are able to easily sell drugs, communicate by using smuggled cell phones and launder money with official inmate accounts.

The report says that incarceration is not an obstacle to gang members, who are able to easily sell drugs, communicate using smuggled cell phones and launder money using official inmate accounts.

“That is an intolerable situation for everyone with a legitimate interest in the safe and proper functioning of this system,” the report says. . . .

SCI Chairman Cary Edwards said the two-year investigation included field surveillance, document analysis and interviews with witnesses. The commission first examined street gangs in 1993, then concluded in 2004 that gangs were the “new face of organized crime” in New Jersey.

“They’re just as organized as the Mafia,” Edwards said.

And just as organized as Islamic terror cells.

Law enforcement efforts are succeeding in putting more gang members behind bars, the report said, but that has created new challenges for state prisons.

“The growing influx of convicted gang members has transformed the prison system into a breeding ground for gang-related criminal activity at a level far more expansive than ever before,” the report said.

And it’s a breeding ground for Islam, too. Whaddya know? They have a lot in common.

Prison staff monitor inmate phone calls, read mail and receive some training on how to deal with gangs. But, the report said, it is not enough. . . .

According to the report, a top Corrections official believes up to half of all state prison inmates are involved with a gang, either by choice or through extortion.

The SCI identified an East Coast chapter of the Bloods as the primary catalyst for criminal activity behind bars. During a November hearing, state investigators said the Bloods — which reportedly account for about half of all incarcerated gang members — exploit corrupt prison guards to smuggle drugs and other contraband.

Shawn Williams, president of the National Alliance of Gang Investigators Association, said the biggest problem is the proliferation of cell phones, which allows inmates to circumvent monitored prison phones.

“It’s a pretty regular thing for gangs who are in prison to use throwaway phones to run their criminal enterprise on the outside,” he said.

Hmmm . . . can’t they jam the signals?

Williams said gangs operate seamlessly in prisons, with members finding illicit ways to make money behind bars. “If he has any rank in his gang at all, he’s not going to stop once he gets locked up,” he said. “That’s his way of life.”

Hey, just like Islam. Same way of life, different name. And likewise, the American jails will be no obstacle to the jihadist drive.

**** UPDATE: Reader Errol sends this list of the Senate jackasses who voted to close Gitmo:

* Richard Durbin (D-IL)
* Tom Harkin (D-IA)
* Patrick Leahy (D-VT)
* Carl Levin (D-MI)
* Jack Reed (D-RI)
* Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)