Ian Acheson

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“[…] Prisons are predatory places,' Professor Ian Acheson, former prison governor and senior advisor to the Counter Extremism Project, told the Daily Mail. 'This alleged incident together with hardcore porn re-enactments will have been seen by thousands of prisoners thousands of times. 'The commodification of female officers as 'meat' will put them at active risk.' And he added: 'I am particularly worried about female officers working in the high security estate who are in close daily proximity to extremely dangerous people with no impulse control such as serial rapists and terrorists. 'This case is a public relations disaster for HM Prison and Probation Service. But more importantly it undermines the safety and security of front-line female staff who do such a vital job on our behalf.'”

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July 29, 2024
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CEP Senior Advisor Ian Acheson quoted: “... Ian Acheson, a former prison governor and counter-terrorism expert at the Home Office, told i: “Airports all over the world now have routinely armed officers patrolling. Their main purpose is to stop terrorists committing a mass casualty event. “While we should wait for due process in relation to the Manchester incident, as a wider point we must ensure armed officers have the support of the public and the government to carry out their vital protective role. “We can’t know how many attacks these men and women have thwarted and we owe them our full support to carry out their tasks professionally within the law.” Mr Acheson said he believes policing bosses responsible for retaining volunteer firearms officers will be examining the Manchester Airport incident “with particular interest”. Though police officers are not allowed to join a trade union by law, they are represented collectively by the Police Federation.”

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July 29, 2024
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CEP Senior Advisor Ian Acheson quoted: "But the UK’s prisons crisis goes back far further than that. The prisons expert Ian Acheson says Sir Tony Blair was a misplaced enthusiast for “lock ’em up” and policies have lurched from one failed initiative to another."

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CEP Senior Advisor Ian Acheson quoted: "Home Secretary: Yvette Cooper | Ian Acheson: Yvette Cooper has two enormous challenges that can’t wait for a honeymoon. The first is making her Border Command, the latest iteration in a long line of failed initiatives on controlling illegal migration, actually deliver. The second is restoring the status and importance of community policing in neighbourhoods marooned in criminal impunity with demoralised cops leaving in droves. Both require agility and energy from a Home Office with neither. Her formidable toughness needs to be turned inward. This is a hot seat on fire. "

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July 7, 2024
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CEP Senior Advisor Ian Acheson writes: "With prison capacity running at 99 per cent and new jails still on the far horizon, the first priority of the new Lord Chancellor is to stop the criminal justice system grinding to a halt. Keir Starmer, aware that the shelf life of ‘inherited mess’ will be brutally short, has gone on TV to prepare public opinion for the emergency early release of prisoners to continue and go even further. The party’s tough on crime poetry pre-election will collide with the prosaic reality of full, anarchic prisons."

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July 3, 2024
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CEP Senior Advisor Ian Acheson writes: "It’s Monday afternoon and I’m walking through the estate where I was born on the outskirts of Enniskillen in Northern Ireland. Here in the United Kingdom’s most westerly and most marginal constituency, politics continues to be war by other means. The Unionist marching season beckons and as well as the usual red white and blue bunting, there are a sea of Israeli flags fluttering in the drizzle. Across town, in nationalist estates, Palestinian flags abound. These adopted tribal identities epitomise the immutable sectarian character of the competition for the seat in Fermanagh and South Tyrone. While Northern Ireland is slowly becoming a more homogenous society and progressive politics makes progress in the urban east, out here on the rural edge of the union, it’s different."

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July 2, 2024
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CEP Senior Advisor Ian Acheson writes: "Most normal people would have no hesitation in condemning what was done to Jim Dixon and the other townspeople murdered beside him as straightforward terrorism. That is beyond the capability of Pat Cullen, the Sinn Fein candidate standing for that constituency in the forthcoming Westminster elections."

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June 19, 2024
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CEP Senior Advisor Ian Acheson quoted: "Among those outraged by the move was Enniskillen native Ian Acheson, an expert on prisons and extremism, who had been serving as an adviser to outgoing cabinet member, Michael Gove.

In a resignation letter published in part by The Telegraph, Mr Acheson said he felt Mr Sunak’s actions were “a colossal act of disrespect,” with the Fermanagh author stating he would always put “country before party.”

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June 13, 2024
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CEP Senior Advisor Ian Acheson referenced: "Ian Acheson, who has advised the communities secretary on extremism, said the Prime Minister’s choice to leave for an election TV interview was a “colossal act of disrespect” to the war veterans at what could be the last event they attend."

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June 7, 2024
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Tuesday, May 14, 2024

CEP Online Book Launch Discussion: “Screwed: Britain’s Prison Crisis and How to Escape It”

On May 14, 2024, CEP hosted an online discussion to discuss the publication of "Screwed: Britain’s Prison Crisis and How to Escape It," by CEP Senior Advisor Ian Acheson, in conversation with CEP Advisor Liam Duffy.

Published on April 11, Screwed has been described as “pithy, provocative and justifiably angry” by Rory Stewart, the former U.K. Government minister for prisons.

Screwed is the inside story of the collapse of His Majesty’s Prison Service, told by someone who had a front-row seat to it all. Acheson went from officer to Governor in less than a decade, and during that time witnessed the uniformed organization he was proud to serve crumble into lethal disarray. Together, Acheson and Duffy explore the former’s brutal account of the politics and decisions that have left prisons in a state where rats roam and violence and intimidation are normalized.

What’s more, the most significant chapter of the book is devoted to the ongoing issue of extremism behind bars. Prisons around the world are struggling to come to grips with a growing extremist population and have thus been described as “incubators” for terrorism. In Britain alone, several plots and attacks have been linked to convicted terrorist offenders, while extremists have even conducted attacks behind prison walls. Ian Acheson, having previously led an official review into Islamist extremism in U.K. prisons, is well placed to explain and analyze the issues Western democracies face in managing their incarcerated extremists.

Book available here.

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Extremists: Their Words. Their Actions.

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On May 8, 2019, Taliban insurgents detonated an explosive-laden vehicle and then broke into American NGO Counterpart International’s offices in Kabul. At least seven people were killed and 24 were injured.

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