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Just HumansAuthor: SCCJR
Stories of justice from the people who make it. Brought to you by the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research. Language: en Genres: Society & Culture, True Crime Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it Trailer: |
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The Barlinnie Special Unit: Art, Punishment and Innovation
Episode 2
Monday, 27 January, 2025
In this episode our host Rachelle Cobain talks to Dr Kirstin Anderson about a new book she’s edited called 'The Barlinnie Special Unit: Art, Punishment and Innovation'. Kirstin is a Lecturer in Criminology at Edinburgh Napier University and has spent a large part of her career teaching music in schools, universities and in prisons. She’s now turned her attention to the history and legacy of the Barlinnie Special Unit, which was a small therapeutic unit that opened in 1973 as a way of managing long term prisoners and violent offenders. Dubbed the world’s most ambitious penal experiment, it was loved and loathed in equal measure during its almost 22 years of life, until its eventual closure in the 1990s. We talk about the stellar cast of contributors to the book including former inmates Jimmy Boyle and Johnny Steele, prison officer David Croft, as well as the therapists and artists that helped shape the unit such as Sarah Trevelyan and Richard Demarco. And we talk about the unit’s controversies, why it closed and what legacy it leaves behind. Kirstin’s book is available to buy now in bookshops and online The Barlinnie Special Unit - Waterside Press Kirstin’s recommendations: The Special Unit Barlinnie Prison: Its Evolution Trough Its Art, Glasgow: Third Eye Centre (1982) by Christopher Carrell and Joyce Laing (eds.) A Sense of Freedom. Edinburgh: Canongate Publishing (1977) by Jimmy Boyle. The Pain of Confinement, London: Pan Books (1984) by Jimmy Boyle Autobiography of a Murderer, London: Pan Books (1998) by Hugh Collins. Silent Scream film based on Larry Winters and written by Bill Beech (1990). The Just Humans podcast is hosted, produced and edited by Rachelle Cobain from the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research. Intro/outro music: Rewind by Donna Maciocia and Sean H. Available for download from the Distant Voices EP ‘Looking at Colours Again.’ Visit our website www.sccjr.ac.uk to find out more about us and work.
