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INTRODUCTION

Just before I take you into the main part of this book, I would like to give you a quick intro to some of the prisons in Scotland. I don’t want to hold you back from the rest of the book, but I feel it is important to give a Jimmy Boy Holland prisons rating.

The A to S of Scottish Prisons

Aberdeen	aka Craiginchess	Full of sheep shaggers, the jail smells, bad jail to do time in. 4/10.
Barlinnie	aka Big Hoose	Biggest prison in Scotland, on average five or six slashings every week. Bad jail. 10/10 for violence.
Carstairs	aka Slipper Factory	State hospital. 8/10 for being mad as it gets.
Cornton Vale	aka Fannyhill	The only women’s prison in Scotland.
Castle Huntly	aka Castle	7/10 because it runs a methadone programme.
Dungavel	semi-open	Now holds illegal immigrants for Scotland.
Dumfries	aka Vietnam	Most violent young offenders. 10/10 for violence.
Friarton	aka Butt sniffer	Bit of a holiday camp. 3/10
Glenochil	aka The Hills	Worst jail for screws, worst segregation unit. 6/10.
Greenock	aka Gateside	Lifers go there at end of sentence, quiet prison. 1/10 for being so boring.
Inverness	aka Porterfield	Where the infamous cages were. 4/10 for packing them in like sardines.
Kilmarnock	aka Bovrilsweet	Like a drugs factory, all mad with drugs, but good jail to do time. 8/10.
Longriggend	aka LRU	Now shut down. 8/0 for it ending in this way.
Lowmoss	aka The Ranch	Full of dafty’s thirty-day shots, good jail for doing time. 10/10.
Noranside	Open prison	Holiday camp. 2/10.
Perth	No nickname	More likely to be murdered in this prison than in any other. Oldest prison in Scotland. 10/10 for violence.
Peninghame	Open prison	Now shut down.
Polmont	Young offenders	(YOI) Liked it so much, I had to keep going back to this hate factory. 10/10.
Peterhead	aka The Napper	Full of beasts now and no cell-sharing. Not like it used to be. 6/10.
Saughton	aka Chavi ville	Easy time for relaxation. 10/10.
Shotts	aka Little Iraq	Worst jail for riots in Scotland. 10/10 for violence.

Note: The infamous special units at Barlinnie, Peterhead and Shotts have now been shut down, as have the notorious cages at Inverness.

Here is a clear guide to Scotland’s prison system and to the hardest bastards ever to have been housed within it, scrapped within it, celebrated and forgotten inside it. Scotland’s population at the last census was 5.7 million. Out of that number, 17,000 are constant offenders. However, there are only 6,153 spaces in Scotland’s twenty prisons and that number was reduced by 700 when three of those prisons shut down. This places a lot of pressure on the remaining prisons. Barlinnie has more prisoners per head of population passing through it than any other prison in Europe.

Most prisons in Scotland are overcrowded: the cramped atmosphere causes the tension inside the prison to build and build before it explodes into violence.

The Scottish prison system has the highest rate of suicides per head of population as well. Most of these poor people were petty criminals who never should have been sent to prison in the first place. Some of them suffered from undetected mental illnesses. I would like to mention Shotts Prison for just a brief moment. There has been a prison in Shotts village since the early 1970s. E-Hall was opened for local Lanarkshire prisoners and held a maximum of sixty prisoners. Then someone in power decided to extend the prison into a 550-capacity, state-of-the-art, showpiece jail. It took over three-and-a-half years to build.

Once it opened, it was the first prison in Scotland – apart from Greenock – to have sinks and toilets in the cells. Still, a major riot took place there within the first year and no one could have predicted just how violent the new Shotts prison would have become: it has one of the worst records of violence in the full Scottish penal system! If they could have predicted that, they would never have built the extension in the first place.

I would just like to take a minute from this chapter to send my condolences to all those who have lost a loved one in prison. I lost a very close friend and co-accused to suicide myself. I know what you must be going through. May every last one of you Rest in Peace. May God look upon you with love and warmth. To the lost children of Scotland. Love and Respect. Yours, Jimmy Boy Holland.