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New Perspectives on Desistance pp 111–137Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Spatial Autonomy and Desistance in Penal Settings. Case Study: The Barlinnie Special Unit (1973–1994)

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Abstract

In post-war Scotland the institutional response to persistently violent and disruptive prisoners was the establishment of a unique network of specialist units providing a number of alternative custody arrangements outside the prison mainstream. This chapter considers the case of the Barlinnie Special Unit (BSU) (1973–1994), arguably the most innovate, anomalous and controversial of these units. It also proved to be the most effective at enabling desistance from prison-based offending. Drawing on prisoners’ autobiographical accounts, the argument presented here reasserts the centrality of individual autonomy in processes of personal change. More specifically, this chapter considers the desistance-promoting effects of granting prisoners ‘spatial autonomy’ over the design, function and aesthetics of their carceral environments. In essence, what the BSU demonstrated is that it was more not less autonomy afforded to prisoners who were considered the most problematic which produced the most profound and authentic behavioural shifts and, moreover, it was less not more institutional control that facilitated this.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In addition to exhibiting his work in a number of European galleries, Jimmy Boyle’s play The Hard Man (co-authored with Tom McGrath) was staged in 1971. Further consolidating his public profile, Channel Four made a film based on his autobiography, A Sense of Freedom, which aired in 1981.

  2. 2.

    Jimmy Boyle published two separate narratives of his prison experiences.

  3. 3.

    Initially, large sections of the media were supportive of these liberal visiting arrangements (unsurprisingly since they were among the beneficiaries of it). In the late 1970s, however, reports that sex workers were being brought into the unit began to surface in local newspapers. The reasonable anxieties (as well as the more salacious gossip) about ‘conjugalities’ reached a crisis point following the publication of the external evaluation. The media seized on one particular paragraph that appeared to confirm officially, or at least authoritatively, the allegations that one suspects newspaper editors were desperate to be true: ‘Naturally it is an open secret that one aspect of privacy is sex’ (Bottomley et al. 1994, 27).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Illinois, Chicago, IL, USA

    Jessica Bird

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  1. Jessica Bird
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Correspondence to Jessica Bird .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Law School, Lancaster University, Lancaster, United Kingdom

    Emily Luise Hart

  2. Institute for Criminal Law & Criminology, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Esther F.J.C. van Ginneken

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Bird, J. (2017). Spatial Autonomy and Desistance in Penal Settings. Case Study: The Barlinnie Special Unit (1973–1994). In: Hart, E., van Ginneken, E. (eds) New Perspectives on Desistance. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95185-7_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95185-7_6

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