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Barlinnie is one of the most notorious prisons in the world and for a hundred years it has held Glasgow's toughest and most violent men, swept up from the city streets. Ten men died on its gallows in the infamous Hanging Shed, including serial killer Peter Manuel. It has sparked rooftop protests and cell block riots, and been home to godfathers of crime like Arthur Thompson Snr and Walter Norval. Barlinnie was also the scene of one of the most controversial experiments in penal history, the Special Unit, where the likes of Jimmy Boyle and Hugh Collins were at the centre of a fierce battle between those who see prison as retribution and those who regard it as a step on the road to redemption, even for the most evil killers. Paul Ferris, T C Campbell and gangleaders galore have languished behind its grim walls and, a hundred years on, Barlinnie still makes headlines. This is its fascinating, turbulent story.
Fifty years ago, a small unit in HM Prison Barlinnie, Glasgow, became a radical experiment whose approach polarised opinion. It encouraged shared decision-making between prisoners and staff, allowed greater access to families and enabled prisoners to explore creative activities. Through the support of visiting artists, and the voices of the prisoners themselves, notably the sculptor Jimmy Boyle (author of A Sense of Freedom), its impact challenged prevailing, disciplinarian prison culture. Arts of various kinds, plus respectful and challenging dialogue, released dormant abilities and strengths in hitherto recalcitrant, formerly violent prisoners. Always controversial, the legacy of the Barlinnie Special Unit challenges overly punitive ideas around crime to this day. The first edited collection on the Barlinnie Special Unit’s almost 22-year history with contributions by those who were there at the time, or helped preserve its legacy. They include artist filmmaker Bill Beech, Scotland’s first art therapist Joyce Laing, leading Scottish impresario Richard Demarco, Sara Trevelyan, ex-wife of Jimmy Boyle (who also contributes), Rupert Wolfe Murray, son of Boyle’s publisher, Professor Mike Nellis of Strathclyde University, Claire Coia, a curator at Glasgow’s Open Museum, Andrew Coyle, founding Director of the International Centre for Prison Studies and journalist, and former Scottish MP Brian Wilson. Based on first-hand accounts, the book is a definitive retrospective and the first detailed history/analysis of the unit. A supreme record of an ‘iconic’ social experiment which includes diverse and largely unpublished materials. Review ‘Looking again at the BSU is a reminder that we have to reform the prison system. It means treating people in a humane way, even those who have committed serious crime, and by inventing creative projects which restore a person’s self-worth as a better route to redemption than mere punishment’ — Baroness Helena Kennedy KC (from the Foreword).
Robert Jeffrey, author of the bestselling "Barlinnie Story" and other true crime books, now tells the remarkable story of the infamous Peterhead Prison in Scotland's far north-east. Built in the 1880s as part of an ambitious humanitarian plan to use convict labour to construct a 'harbour of refuge' on the town's wild, storm-battered coast, it became what some call Scotland's gulag. A cold and brutal place, it has held down the years some of Scotland's most violent criminals and most infamous prisoners, convicted of the most heinous of crimes. In the early days, convicts were controlled by men as hard as their charges. The wardens carried swords and were quick to use them if necessary. And when convict labour was used to build the harbour, they worked with rifles trained on them at all times. Peterhead's wardens were clearly not to be crossed. Throughout the history of the prison, riots and breakouts have made headlines, with the SAS involved in restoring order at one point.Peterhead also had the reputation of being so secure that escape was impossible, with the notable exception of Johnny Ramensky, the safeblower turned war hero who went back to his criminal ways and spent more than forty years of his life in prison, many of them in Peterhead. He became the first inmate to escape and repeated the exercise four more times, often for his own satisfaction and amusement, each time being recaptured after a short taste of freedom. "Peterhead - Scotland's Toughest Prison" tells the remarkable inside story of a truly grim institution with a fearsome reputation.
Colin MacFarlane was born in the Gorbals in the 1950s, 20 years after the publication of No Mean City, the classic novel about pre-war life in what was once Glasgow's most deprived district. He lived in the same street as its fictional 'razor king', Johnnie Stark, and subsequently realised that a lot of the old characters represented in the book were still around as late as the 1960s. Men still wore bunnets and played pitch and toss; women still treated the steamie as their social club. The razor gangs were running amok once again, and filth, violence, crime, rats, poverty and drunkenness abounded, just like they did in No Mean City. MacFarlane witnessed the last days of the old Gorbals as a major regeneration programme, begun in 1961, was implemented, and, as a street boy, he had a unique insight into a once great community in rapid decline. In this engrossing book, MacFarlane reveals what it was really like to live in the old Gorbals.
The autobiography of an ex-offender and twice-times inmate of Barlinnie Prison, now a social work team-leader in his native Scotland.
It's a memorable year in Scotland. The country will vote on independence, Glasgow will welcome the world to the Commonwealth Games, and the world's best golfers battle it out in the Ryder Cup on Scottish soil. Meanwhile, Scots do what they always do - eat and drink too much, complain about the weather and, fortunately, have a laugh about it. Their tales of the funniest events will be sent to The Herald newspaper's iconic Diary column, and the best of them are gathered here.
Today, the Tower of London is a tourist site, home only to the crown jewels, but not long ago the imposing structure held traitors, political prisoners, and more, often on their way to the chopping block. Even outside of this famous building, prisons have changed radically since the Norman Conquest in 1066. In the first book on the history of prisons in Britain, former prison governor and professor of criminology David Wilson offers unrivaled insight into the penal system in England, Scotland, and Wales, charting the rise and fall of forms of punishments that take place behind their walls. Pain and Retribution explores prisons as an institution and examines how they are designed, organized, and managed. Wilson reveals that prisons have to satisfy the demands of three interested parties: the public, from politicians and media commentators to everyday citizens; the prison staff; and the prisoners themselves. He shows how prevailing concerns and issues of the times allow one faction or another to have more power at varying points in history, and he considers how prisons are unable to satisfy all three at the same time—leading to the system being seen as a failure, despite rising numbers of prisoners and growing funds invested in keeping them incarcerated. With intriguing comparisons between the prisons of New York City and Britain and searching questions about the purposes of the current penal system, Pain and Retribution provides unparalleled access to prison landings, staffs, and the people behind the locked doors.
There is barely a corner of the five great oceans where Clyde-built is not recognised as the ultimate shipbuilding accolade. As late as the 1950s, around a seventh of the total of the world’s sea going tonnage was built on the Clyde. It is not a particularly wide river, nor spectacularly long – it is certainly no Mississippi or Amazon – but its fame is legendary. From the many yards on its banks, north and south, en route from the gentle hills of Lanarkshire to the Firth of Clyde, came engineering innovation and fabled names in shipping – iconic vessels like the Cutty Sark and the Delta Queen, fearsome warships like the mighty Hood, and the cream of the world’s great liners, the Cunard Queens and the beautiful white Empress vessels. All that and cargo carrying workhorses that opened up the world. More recent times have seen the phoenix-like revival of Ferguson Shipbuilders, the last remaining yard on the Lower Clyde, saved from closure by industrialist Jim McColl and now investing in the hybrid technology of the future that has thrown a lifeline to this once great yard. This is the fascinating, often turbulent, story of a great river, its great ships and the folk who built them.
Peter Manuel was an icy-eyed psychopath and sexual predator, a petty thief and a relentless liar given to violent and uncontrollable rages. His unprecedented crimes presented the Scottish police and public with a new sort of criminal: the ruthless serial killer. Manuel was hanged at the age of thirty-one and convicted of seven murders, but suspected of many more. He slew many of his victims as they lay sleeping in bed, while others were picked up in lonely places and strangled or savagely beaten to death. Right up to his final arrest, he played a taunting game with the police, mocking their bungling attempts to trap him and continuing to kill with impunity - that is until he was trapped by his own vanity and arrogance. This definitive definitive biography recounts Manuel's chilling story from his birth in the USA to the moment the hangman's rope snapped his spine in Glasgow's notorious Barlinnie Prison.
To honour the extraordinary contribution of Professor Anthony Edward Bottoms to criminology and criminal justice, leading criminologists and penal scholars have been asked to contribute original essays on the wide range of areas in which he has written. The book starts by reflecting on the depth and breadth of Anthony's contribution and his melding of perspectives from moral philosophy, social theory, empirical social science research, and criminal justice. This is no ordinary collection, because it also contains a major essay by Anthony Bottoms, on Criminology and 'positive morality', reflecting on social order and social norms. In similar vein, Jonathan Jacobs approaches criminology from a moral philosophical viewpoint, whilst Ian Loader and Richard Sparks ponder social theory and contemporary criminology. Topically, Peter Neyroud reflects on evidence-based practice and the process of trying to do experiments in relation to policing. In the second section of the book on Crime, Justice, and Communities, Loraine Gelsthorpe reminds us that justice is about people, in considering the treatment of women in community justice. Joanna Shapland draws parallels between the process of desistance from crime and the potential role of restorative justice in affecting offenders' journeys. P.-O. Wikstrom reflects on the social ecology of crime, whilst Antje Du Bois Pedain considers the theoretical and practical challenges of sentencing constructively. Finally, the book turns to Anthony Bottoms' major interest in punishment and penal order. David Garland puts penal populism under the microscope, whilst Alison Liebling explores the empirical evidence for theories of penal legitimacy. Mike Nellis looks back at the use of the creative arts in prisons in Scotland's Barlinnie Unit, whilst Justice Tankebe explores police legitimacy.