CEP Spotlight: Ian Acheson Highlighting Counter Extremism Project Experts
(New York, N.Y.) – CEP Senior Advisor Ian Acheson, a former prison governor and senior official in the U.K. Home Office with more than 25 years of experience, is an expert in the U.K.’s criminal justice system, specifically the prevention of Islamist and right-wing radicalization in its prison system and the post-release threat of terrorist offenders. In 2016, after leaving public service, Acheson led a landmark independent review of Islamist extremism in the country’s prison and probation service, which led to transformational change in the way the U.K. manages ideologically inspired offenders. In the years since, he has worked to assist governments across the world to combat violent extremism in their prison systems and other criminal justice reforms in post-authoritarian states. Acheson has also been the director of an international charity and the chief operating officer of Great Britain’s legal human rights and equality regulator. He is currently visiting professor at the University of Staffordshire School of Policing, Law and Forensics.
Thought Leadership, Research, and Analysis
The Fishmonger’s Hall Inquest: How was Usman Khan Allowed to Kill On November 29, 2019, 11 months after his release from prison, convicted Islamist terrorist Usman Khan stabbed and killed Cambridge University alumni Saskia Jones and Jack Merritt at Fishmonger’s Hall in London. The two were volunteers in a Cambridge University-sponsored rehabilitation program in which Khan had been a participant and were attending a five-year celebration of the program. Three other people were also stabbed in the attack. Khan was later shot and killed by police on London Bridge. In a series of blogs on April 19, April 26, May 4, May 10, May 17, and June 1, Acheson details the multiple institutional failures that allowed Khan into the program and have access to his victims despite repeated assessments that he remained a ‘high risk’ terrorist in prison who had not changed his views. “Khan did not drop out of the sky. He was assessed, surveilled, and supervised for eight years in prison custody. He was subject to elaborate (but ineffectual) supervision on his release. His intent and capability to do murderous harm was hiding in plain sight. This was a catastrophic system failure that exposes just how broken our terrorist risk management processes are. No amount of tinkering can fix the problem. We need a fundamental reset. Things must change. The next Usman Khan is in the pipeline.”
Hiding in Plain Sight? Disguised Compliance by Terrorist Offenders On November 9, CEP and the European Policy Centre (EPC) held a webinar and launch event for their discussion paper, Hiding in Plain Sight? Disguised Compliance by Terrorist Offenders. Disguised compliance describes a perpetrator’s deliberate manipulation of the truth to disguise his/her true intent. Recent terrorist attacks, including Usman Khan’s at Fishmonger’s Hall in November 2019, strongly suggest that violent extremists are readily utilizing disguised compliance. The CEP-EPC paper examines the challenges of detecting and countering deception and includes recommendations for frontline practitioners, governments, and others who deal with extremists in custody or in the community. Acheson was instrumental in the development of the CEP-EPC paper and was a speaker at the webinar. Other webinar speakers included: Olivier Onidi, deputy director general for Migration and Home Affairs, European Commission; Sir Mark Rowley, former head of U.K. Counter Terrorism Policing: Lucinda Creighton, CEP Europe advisor; Jim Gamble, founding chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre; and Gaby Thijssen, psychologist, High Security and Terrorist Unit, Vught Prison, Netherlands.
Terror on the Street: The Inquest into the Streatham High Road Incident
No Justice, No Peace? Northern Ireland’s Amnesty Fiasco In July 2021, the U.K. government released a discussion paper called, “Addressing the legacy of Northern Ireland’s past.” The paper recommended ending all criminal and civil procedures for Troubles-related court cases associated with the prior to 1998 when the Good Friday Agreement was signed. In blogs on July 26 and September 10, Acheson discusses his strong objection to the amnesty scheme and his counter-proposal, which includes the establishment of a truly victim-centered legacy center that prioritizes harm done; the compulsion for suspected perpetrators to engage in meaningful disclosure; and civil penalties for non-compliance.
Marching Home? Why Repatriating Foreign Terrorist Fighters is a Pan-European Priority This CEP-EPC joint report published in November 2020 was co-authored by Acheson and Amanda Paul and argues that Europe needs to take responsibility for their nationals and establish a united approach towards repatriating foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs) to their home countries. Since the fall of ISIS’s so-called caliphate, hundreds of European FTFs and their families remain incarcerated in overcrowded, insecure, and unsanitary prisons and camps in Syria and Iraq. While some children have been repatriated, there is a broad popular European resistance to the idea of bringing ‘dangerous traitors’ home, as they are often viewed as significant security threats.
Guns and Glory: Criminality, Imprisonment, and Jihadist Extremism in Europe Acheson and EPC’s Amanda Paul also co-authored a large-scale research paper that examined the complex inter-relationship between other forms of non-ideological criminality and jihadist violence across nine EU countries and the United Kingdom. The paper makes conclusions and recommendations, in particular around improving the reintegration of convicted violent extremists after release from prison and the case for economic investment in ‘hot spots’ for radicalization.
Op-eds and Selected Media
The Spectator: “The catalogue of failures that allowed Usman Khan to kill” “The government has launched a review of the way terrorists are handled inside UK jails amid fears for the lives of prison officers from Isis-inspired terror attacks, The Independent can reveal. Two inmates were jailed earlier this month for trying to murder a prison officer at HMP Whitemoor using improvised weapons and wearing fake suicide vests – one of four terror attacks allegedly carried out by serving or released prisoners in the past year. Ian Acheson, a former prison governor who carried out the government’s 2016 review of Islamist extremism in jails, said he feared that a prison officer could be taken hostage and killed. “I’m not at all satisfied from the evidence that we’ve seen that the prison service is on top of this problem,” he told The Independent. “We’ve come within millimeters of a prison officer being murdered by a terrorist in prison… There is something very wrong at the moment inside our high-security prisons and it would be deluded to suggest otherwise.”’
Daily Mail: “Calls to overhaul Prevent as it is revealed 'divisive groups who DON'T believe in counter-terror strategy help decide if individuals need to be deradicalised' - after Islamists behind four recent attacks were ALL referred to scheme” GBNews: “Terror wannabe to be released from prison” The Times: “Counter-extremist programmes need a radical overhaul” Acheson argues in March that the U.K.’s counter extremist programs must be redesigned in order to be effective: “What should we do about terrorist prisoners who subvert attempts to treat them? This week Jonathan Hall QC, the government’s independent terror laws watchdog, published his latest report. In it he cites the ‘significant problem’ of extremists on either side of the prison walls who disrupt and undermine the joint Home Office/Ministry of Justice desistance and disengagement programme, which is designed to wean them off toxic ideologies. Subjects feigned sleep, wore headphones, went for extended lavatory breaks and read books to frustrate the efforts of therapists to engage with them.”
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