"Counter Extremism Project Senior Advisor Ian Acheson sat down for an interview about growing up with a terrorist threat on the Civic Space podcast from the University of Liverpool.”
 

CEP Senior Advisor Ian Acheson writes: "The Home Secretary has admitted a thing that has long been known to those of us without close protection officers: that in many communities, people often feel that ‘crime has no consequences’. "

CEP Senior Advisor Ian Acheson writes: "The last comparable period of civil disorder in this country happened in 2011. Then as now, the courts acted with speed and severity to try to quell five days of rioting in multiple locations, which traumatised the nation, caused hundreds of millions in damage and injured more than three hundred officers. The head of the Crown Prosecution Service at the time was one Keir Starmer. Now, as prime minister, he seeks again to confront the horrific street violence with the same apparent energy and determination. But can a punitive response work to stop violence that has at times threatened to overwhelm the police? Times have changed, and our criminal justice system is in tatters."

"We spoke to former prison governor Ian Acheson. He’s now the Senior Advisor to the Counter Extremism Project. We began by asking him if the police and security services should’ve seen these riots coming."

"'It’s not going to be too long before we find the Milosevic in the country.'
People feel that the Government doesn’t speak for them anymore and this could push them to the far-right, says Ian Acheson, former Home Office director of community safety."

“[…] 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.'”

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.”

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."

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. "

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."