CEP Senior Advisor Ian Acheson writes: "Thanks to a new National Audit Office report on jail capacity, we now know that prison is awful — but there’s also not enough of it. This paradox sits at the heart of the present overcrowding crisis."

CEP Senior Advisor Ian Acheson writes: "The news agenda has been quite chewy of late, so not many people will have noticed the publication of The Home Detention Curfew and Requisite and Minimum Custodial Periods (Amendment) Order 2024, slipped out last month."

CEP Senior Advisor Ian Acheson writes: "Violent extremism has the power to disfigure society and rob people of their personal security. We can address this problem but only if we equip our prisons to be places with the time, space and tools to challenge the scourge of ideologically motivated offending. And, of course, only if the supply of new recruits is stopped at source."

CEP Senior Advisor Ian Acheson interviewed: "Talk's Ian Collins is joined by former prison governor Ian Acheson to discuss the standard of living in UK prisons.

Cases of rats, broken windows, overcrowding and violence have been reported in prisons. Ian Acheson says the conditions are "inhumane" and prisons "don't have sufficient staff to help prisoners" to be rehabilitated. "

CEP Senior Advisor Ian Acheson writes: "At the last count, in April of this year, Britain’s failing prison system accommodated 246 prisoners convicted of terrorism-related offences. Not all of them are extremely dangerous but enough are to warrant their dispersal across several high-security prisons."

CEP Senior Advisor Ian Acheson quoted: "Ian Acheson, a former prison governor and a counter-terrorism expert who reviewed extremism in prisons for the government, said that organised crime groups could use copies of the layouts along with other public information to co-ordinate drone deliveries of drugs and weapons, and potentially orchestrate an escape."

"Robinson presents a problem for the prison service. “The decisions around how and where Robinson will be held are fraught with difficulty for prison bosses,” said Ian Acheson, a counter-extremism adviser and former prison governor...Acheson warned that attempts were being made to propagandise his imprisonment, and misinformation about his treatment was already spreading on social media. The Tommy Robinson propaganda machine seems unlikely to go away."

"Robinson was also kept isolated during his last stint in prison, something which would be a "headache" for prisoner officers, according to former prison governor Ian Acheson."

"Former prison governor Ian Acheson said the decision where to put Robinson would be a 'real headache' for the prison service.

'You have someone who would not be considered an escape risk, hasn't been convicted for a crime of violence and has been found guilty of breaking a civil restriction, so normally he could be put in open conditions,' he said.

'But open prisons are very unsupervised and that could leave Robinson at risk of being attacked.

'There is also a risk of his presence disrupting the good order of the prison due to the presence of people who might sympathise with him - particularly as the far-right push the narrative of the rioters being ''political prisoners''.' "