The threat of violence has never been far away from crowded jails but the problem is now endemic. The rehabilitation of offenders cannot happen within an unstable system. As the former prison governor Ian Acheson says: “Broken staff cannot help fix...

Ian Acheson, a former prison governor who carried out a review of Islamist extremism in jails in 2016, described Hashem Abedi, 28, as the second most dangerous prisoner in the UK after the serial killer Robert Maudsley.

When I’m speaking to people who know nothing about prisons, I often start with an entertaining mind game.I ask people to imagine that they are on the board of a company with a turnover north of £6bn a year. The company makes widgets. The widgets have...

Eye on Extremism: April 14, 2025

Counter-terrorism police are leading the investigation into an attack on three prison officers by Hashem Abedi, one of the men responsible for the Manchester Arena bombing. The officers sustained life-threatening injuries on Saturday including burns...

The threat of violence has never been far away from crowded jails but the problem is now endemic. The rehabilitation of offenders cannot happen within an unstable system. As the former prison governor Ian Acheson says: “Broken staff cannot help fix...

Former prison governor Ian Acheson said Abedi’s past showed he posed such a danger he should have been held under tighter security conditions than the ones at the separation unit. Mr Acheson also warned that the assault “moves us closer to the day...

CEP Senior Advisor Ian Acheson writes: How do you break the rule of law inside our jails? You could do worse than try to murder a prison officer on duty, which by all accounts nearly came to pass yesterday. The terrorist Hashem Abedi, the brother of...

CEP Senior Advisor Ian Acheson writes: The last time I visited HMP Frankland, where three prison officers were reportedly attacked and seriously injured by a terrorist yesterday, was in 2015. Then, I had been tasked by the government to investigate...

ARD Tagesschau podcast on Active Clubs with Alexander Ritzmann Young men meet in trendy sports clubs for fitness training and boxing or practise jiu-jitsu martial arts. According to experts, the so-called "active clubs" are primarily about fun and...

Eye on Extremism: April 11, 2025

It all started, and ended, in March. Even though the United States has backed Israel in its campaign in Gaza against Hamas, which launched the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that killed some 1,200 people in Israel, Trump administration officials met with...