"On this episode, Niall Paterson also speaks to former prison governor Professor Ian Acheson, author of the book Screwed - Britain's Prison Crisis And How to Escape It, about the prison environment, and how systemic a problem it has become."

"Thousands of prisoners are to be freed early to ease overcrowding in England’s prisons.
@JonnyDymond asks Ian Acheson, former prison governor, what most concerns him about this new scheme."

CEP Senior Advisor Ian Acheson: "Are you ready for SDS40? You might need to be if you’re unlucky enough to live in a high crime area. This is the anodyne descriptor for the government’s emergency release of an estimated 5,000 offenders this month and next, having served only 40 per cent of their sentence in prison custody. This is the result of a hospital pass from the outgoing Conservative government who passed laws to lock more people up for longer without any coherent thought about where they would be banged up."

"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."

CEP Senior Advisor Ian Acheson writes: "Is there any point in rehabilitating prisoners sentenced to ‘whole life’ tariffs, who will die in custody? Today’s announcement banning such prisoners from a fundamental human right – to get married – would suggest the state thinks there isn’t."

“[…] 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: "Professor Ian Acheson, a former prison governor, revealed that low-paid new recruits were being rushed through a training process which leaves them ill-equipped to properly deal with manipulative criminals."

"The comments of ex-governor Professor Ian Acheson come following a series of high-profile cases of female prison staff engaging in inappropriate relationships with male inmates."

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."