£100m prison lined up to replace Barlinnie
● Notorious Glasgow facility dates back to Victorian times
Scotland’s largest and most notorious prison is set to be closed to make way for a new £100 million facility.
HMP Barlinnie in Glasgow, with a capacity of 1,000 inmates, will be put up for sale under plans said to have been given the go-ahead by the Scottish Government.
It is thought the Scottish Prison Service has identified three locations for the new prison, two of which lie inside Glasgow, and one on the outskirts.
It is expected that the new facility will be double the size of Barlinnie.
Some of the cost of the new building will be offset by the sale of the old prison, which dates back to 1882.
One Scottish Prison Service source was reported to have said: “This is long overdue. Barlinnie was past its sell-by date many years ago.
“Its conditions are the worst
0 A Hall at Barlinnie, which was built in the Victorian age, is long past its sell-by date. says an SPS source
in Scotland and probably the entire UK. Barlinnie’s history is dark and violent and it belongs in the past.
“But it’s in a prime location and a lot of developers will want it.”
The Scottish Prison Service confirmed that possible sites for a new prison had been identified, but declined to name them citing “commercial confidentiality”.
A spokesman added: “The
Scottish Government has a surplus land disposal policy. In the first instance, we would have to offer the land to other parts of government to use it for other purposes.
“Barlinnie is a Victorian prison and in need of replacement. We’ve enjoyed unprecedented levels of investment in our prison estate in the last decade, which has seen us tackle a number of major priorities. Barlinnie remains one. Its replacement is in the government infrastructure plan. We’ve been active in looking at a number of potential sites to relocate the prison.”
Barlinnie, which usually receives prisoners from west of Scotland courts, houses male offenders serving less than four years behind bars, as well as prisoners on remand.
It also allocates suitable prisoners from its convicted population to lower security prisons, including HMP Low Moss and HMP Greenock, as well as holding long-term prisoners in the initial phase of their sentence, until places become available for them transfer to long-term prisons such as HMP Glenochil, HMP Shotts, HMP Kilmarnock or HMP Grampian.
Itemergedearlierthismonth that Scotland’s jails are the most crowded they have been for four years, with a dramatic rise in those on remand driving up the prison population.
There are currently around 7,800 people in custody in Scotland, with the imprisonment rate among the highest in Europe.