The Barlinnie Special Unit

The Barlinnie Special Unit PDF Author: Dr Kirstin Anderson
Publisher: Waterside Press
ISBN: 191460346X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
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 A supreme record of an ‘iconic’ social experiment which includes diverse and largely unpublished materials.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).

The Barlinnie Special Unit

The Barlinnie Special Unit PDF Author: Dr Kirstin Anderson
Publisher: Waterside Press
ISBN: 191460346X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 299

Get Book Here

Book Description
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).

Imprisonment Today

Imprisonment Today PDF Author: Simon Backett
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Criminal justice, Administration of
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
A collection of papers on various aspects of the imprisonment process in which each chapter highlights a critical area in the prisoner's passage through the penal system. The book aims to promote a greater understanding of the issues and problems inherent to the British penal system.

The Special Unit, Barlinnie Prison

The Special Unit, Barlinnie Prison PDF Author: Christopher Carrell
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Book Description


A Sense of Freedom

A Sense of Freedom PDF Author: Jimmy Boyle
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1473529220
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
Foreword by Irvine Welsh 'My life sentence had actually started the day I left my mother's womb...' Jimmy Boyle grew up in Glasgow’s Gorbals. All around him the world was drinking, fighting and thieving. To survive, he too had to fight and steal... Kids’ gangs led to trouble with the police. Approved schools led to Borstal, and Jimmy was on his way to a career in crime. By his twenties he was a hardened villain, sleeping with prostitutes, running shebeens and money-lending rackets. Then they nailed him for murder. The sentence was life – the brutal, degrading eternity of a broken spirit in the prisons of Peterhead and Inverness. Thankfully, Jimmy was able to turn his life around inside the prison walls and eventually released on parole. A Sense of Freedom is a searing indictment of a society that uses prison bars and brutality to destroy a man's humanity and at the same time an outstanding testament to one man's ability to survive, to find a new life, a new creativity, and a new alternative.

The Barlinnie Story

The Barlinnie Story PDF Author: Robert Jeffrey
Publisher: Black & White Publishing
ISBN: 1845023730
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
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.

So You Think You Know Me?

So You Think You Know Me? PDF Author: Allan Weaver
Publisher: Waterside Press
ISBN: 1906534713
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
The autobiography of an ex-offender and twice-times inmate of Barlinnie Prison, now a social work team-leader in his native Scotland.

Freedom Found

Freedom Found PDF Author: Sara Trevelyan
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781910895078
Category : Prisoners
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
Sara Trevelyan was independent, clever, and privileged. She was a qualified doctor who campaigned for penal reform. She fell in love with and in 1980 married Jimmy Boyle, a convicted murderer who had become a famous writer and sculptor.

Scottish Hard Bastards

Scottish Hard Bastards PDF Author: Jimmy Holland & Stephen Richards
Publisher: Kings Road Publishing
ISBN: 1782192484
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 187

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Book Description
Meet the hardest men from a country where the streets are the most dangerous and the gangsters and criminals are the scariest in Britain. These faces have seen it all: the guns, the knives, the fights and the toughest prisons. This book will take you deep inside the rough, mad, bad, drug-infested, cut-throat, back-stabbing world of the Scottish prison system, bringing to light the last fifty years of infamous incidents that have taken place behind bars in some of the highest security prisons. With a frightening in-depth look at the most notorious prisons and institutions and the most daunting and fearsome of inmates, this compulsive guide covers them all from murderers to armed-robbers, a female crime clan with a family feel to it and some of the most notorious cases in Scottish criminal history.

The Pain of Confinement

The Pain of Confinement PDF Author: Jimmy Boyle
Publisher: Canongate Books
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
Diary kept while in Barlinnie Prison, Glasgow Special Unit.

Special Units for Long-term Prisoners

Special Units for Long-term Prisoners PDF Author: Great Britain. Research and Advisory Group on the Long-Term Prison System
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 104

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Book Description
One of the recommendations of the 1984 Report of the Control Review Committee, "Managing the Long-Term Prison System", was that a system of small units should be 'established to cater for prisoners who are identified as presenting control problems which cannot be dealt with in normal long-term prison conditions'. This report sets out the views of the Research and Advisory Group on the Long-term Prison System (RAG) on the theoretical underpinning of the special units and their regimes, and identifies the components of an associated research programme to be conducted by the Home Office Research and Planning Unit.