Тюрьма Барлинни: История и будущее крупнейной шотландской тюрьмы.

Prison operated by the Scottish Prison Service and located in the residential suburb of Riddrie

HM Prison Barlinnie is the largest prison in Scotland. It is operated by the Scottish Prison Service and is located in the residential suburb of Riddrie, in the north east of Glasgow, Scotland. It is informally known locally as The Big Hoose, Bar and Bar L. In 2018, plans for its closure were announced.

Barlinnie was designed by Major General Thomas Bernard Collinson, architect and engineer to the Scottish Prison Department, and it was built in the then rural area of Riddrie adjacent to the Monkland Canal (now the route of the M8 motorway), first opening with the commissioning of A hall in July 1882. Barlinnie prison's five accommodation halls: A, B, C, D and E, were built in stages between 1882 and 1897, with each holding approximately 69 inmates. There was a major extension to the perimeter in 1967 to create an industrial compound. From 1973 till 1994, the world famous "Special Unit" placed emphasis on rehabilitation, the best known success story being that of reformed Glasgow gangster Jimmy Boyle. Cultural output associated with the Special Unit included Boyle's autobiography, A Sense of Freedom (1977); The Hardman (1977), the play Boyle wrote with Tom McGrath; a body of sculpture; and The Silent Scream (1979), a book of prose and poems by Larry Winters, who committed suicide in 1977.

Today Barlinnie is the largest prison in Scotland, holding just under 1,400 prisoners although it has a design capacity of 987. In October 2018, it was announced that HMP Barlinnie is to be sold and replaced with a new superjail within Glasgow or its outskirts. In 2019, local MP Paul Sweeney proposed that the historic prison buildings be saved from demolition and converted into a prison museum after it is decommissioned. In January 2020, the Prison Service announced that the proposed site for the replacement prison was a site formerly occupied by Provan Gas Works.