The radical Barlinnie prison experiment that transformed 'Scotland's scariest man'
Jimmy Boyle was serving a life sentence for murder when he took up sculpting at the controversial facility before it closed in 1994.
Last updated 1st Oct 2024
A former gangster from Glasgow once called "Scotland's scariest man" is sharing his experience of a radical unit inside Barlinnie prison in the 1970s in a new book.
Jimmy Boyle was serving a life sentence for murder when he took up sculpting at the controversial facility before it closed in 1994.
It started in 1973 as a therapeutic unit and over time it became a place where prisoners could take up the arts including sculpting, painting, playwriting or poetry.
Criminologist and lecturer at Edinburgh Napier University Kirstin Anderson told Forth 1: "It recognised the individual and how they played a role in their own progression.
"It's very different from how prisons are organised today and I think we need to take inspiration from this and be more careful with punishment."
There was no set programme for prisoners to follow, they often met up with people from a range of creative backgrounds and tried their hand at different activities.
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The facility is often viewed as helping to change the way prisoners across Scotland interacted with staff.
She added: "I think Scotland has the capacity to do things differently and hopefully this book will get us talking about it.
"We need to think more critically about how we respond to people who harm each other and we know prisons themselves don't fix problems, they often exacerbate them."