It would appear that the only way hardened criminals can go
“straight” after being released is by having a “tell all” autobiography
published. This week’s book is one of those. Blink (ISBN
978-1-780-57575-9, Mainstream Publishing, 2012) is the story of a
Glaswegian, Ian MacDonald, as narrated to ghost writer David Leslie.
The book begins with Ian MacDonald relating his
childhood. It is almost pure psychological case textbook stuff, with a
drunken abusive father eventually turned out by his mother, expelled from
school in his teens, to hang around street corners and associating with
petty criminals, to then being picked up himself and sent to borstal (junior
prison) by the time he was 16 years old. By the time he was 21 he had made
up his mind to be a career criminal, and with the ‘easy’ pickings of petty
thievery as his apprenticeship, he marched on from there.
What is interesting, is that despite incarceration in
borstal (Scottish junior prisons) which did produce “black holes of
depression and emptiness after visits from the family,” and heavy attention
from the police, this was no deterrent for the youngster, so it can be
argued that the penal system is not producing the correct end results. But
what does? Of even more interest is the fact that his two younger brothers
all followed him into lives of crime, incarceration, crime and
incarceration. Ian MacDonald musing that the three brothers never
experienced freedom at the same time.
During his (many) stays in prison, MacDonald describes
incidents of brutality by the warders, and when on those rare occasions he
was ‘outside’, police brutality. However, brutality by criminals seems to be
accepted, and many murderers were his “good friends” such as the Kray
brothers.
His insight of himself is extremely poor. He comes across
as an aggressive psychopath, but then writes, “I have never sought out
trouble, it just seems to follow me.”
It is difficult to understand the criminal mind, but this
quotation might guide you, “David is unfortunately serving life after being
convicted of murdering a guy in a Cumbernauld garden center.” That one
sentence (pardon the pun) is almost enough to show the mind-set of the
hardened criminal. It hangs on the word “unfortunately”. The word should
have been “deservedly”, but when you have spent your entire life unabashedly
thieving one obviously gains a different viewpoint. A sad reflection I am
afraid.
For B.545, this book reads as a directory of criminals,
with every page having mentions of his relationships with similar
law-breakers. Another type of society populated by gangs who owe their
allegiance to differing groups based on religion, drug territory or even
opposing football teams. The lifestyle was one of spend, spend, spend with
the money coming from theft and drugs, but hedonism was certainly more
attractive than any form of gainful employment. This is probably true for us
all, but somehow childhood lessons of cause and effect keep the rest of us
on the straight and narrow. This book shows that Ian MacDonald did not learn
those lessons.
If you come from Glasgow Scotland, read this book and
feel embarrassed.
