Natalie Logan is using her personal experience of drug addiction to help men at HMP Barlinnie, where the vast majority of prisoners are caught in a revolving door of addiction, crime, and incarceration.
Natalie Logan is using her personal experience of drug addiction to help men at HMP Barlinnie(Image: HANDOUT)
A former drug addict is helping cons at Scotland’s toughest jail get clean. Natalie Logan is using her personal experience of drug addiction to help men at HMP Barlinnie, where the vast majority of prisoners are caught in a revolving door of addiction, crime, and incarceration.
Her story is harrowing. Her dad hanged himself in jail while on heroin when she was five. Her lifeline was rehab and abstinence in 2010 and she now runs prison rehab charity Sisco.
Its Recovery Cafe opened at HMP Barlinnie in 2016 and Sisco is helping inmates to get clean through peer-led support. Their work features in a shocking new BBC documentary series which follows the lives of inmates battling addiction amid a flood of illegal substances while serving time in the country’s largest and most infamous jail.
The inside of HMP Barlinnie in Glasgow(Image: SWNS)
Inside Barlinnie lays bare how rife illicit subtances are in a decade-long rise in drug use and deaths since psychoactive sub-stances, or ‘legal’ highs, started flooding in. Natalie said: “I grew up on the other side of the justice system.
“But when I went into recovery and had my own children, I started to forgive and rebuild. The work we do is mainly about supporting men through trauma, addiction, and recovery.
“A lot of what we see comes down to behaviour, but when you look deeper, it’s really unprocessed trauma. We go into prisons and create a safe space, with no officers in the room.
“We bring in people with lived experience, who have been through the justice system or adversity but have turned their lives around, someone they can relate to. Instead of asking ‘what’s wrong with you?’, We ask, ‘What happened to you?’”
HMP Barlinnie(Image: CREDIT LINE:Friel Kean Films)
The Victorian-age Glasgow prison is crammed with over 1400 inmates across five halls where prisoners share cells and can be locked behind cell doors for up to 23 hours a day. Against this backdrop, cons and staff battle to cope in an overcrowded system under strain.
Bar-L is due to be replaced by over budget HMP Glasgow in 2028, three years later than planned.
Mick Stoney, Governor of Barlinnie (Image: CREDIT LINE:Friel Kean Films)
Barlinnie governor Mick Stoney reveals: “It’s a constant battle to keep drugs out through visits, throw-overs, and drones.”
“The hardest thing is the huge unpredictably, some-one could take something that sends them over the edge and therefore present as violent, aggressive or psychotic and staff are having to try and control that individual.”
- Inside Barlinnie is a Friel Kean production for BBC Scotland. Both episodes are available on BBC iPlayer from Tuesday.
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