:00:11. > :00:21.isolated on a daily basis. On Newsnight Scotland tonight: LA
:00:21. > :00:26.Law - a Catholic priest and this former resident of death-row come to
:00:26. > :00:31.Glasgow to share their experience of tackling violence and gang culture.
:00:31. > :00:36.But is there any meaningful comparison to be made between cars
:00:36. > :00:42.go and California? And he has been described as Scotland's Albert Camus
:00:42. > :00:49.and the father of Tartan Noir. As he celebrated trilogy is republished I
:00:49. > :00:55.will be speaking to William McIlvanney. Scotland has many
:00:55. > :00:59.problems which we often described as intractable, drugs, alcohol and
:00:59. > :01:07.poverty among them. Also on that list is violence and gang culture
:01:07. > :01:13.yet there is no doubt there has been some success tackling the issue of
:01:13. > :01:17.young men coming together and knocking lumps out of each other.
:01:17. > :01:22.The violence reduction unit is not resting on its laurels. It is now
:01:22. > :01:26.looking to LA and the scheme which diverts gang members away from jail
:01:26. > :01:36.and into jobs, but can this experience really translate to
:01:36. > :01:37.
:01:37. > :01:41.Scotland and if it can, can afford This is gang culture, Scotland's
:01:41. > :01:51.style. Scenes of running battles between young men all too familiar
:01:51. > :01:56.and it is a problem encountered in many Western countries. Los Angeles
:01:56. > :02:06.has regarded as America's gang capital, not really the same league
:02:06. > :02:09.
:02:09. > :02:15.as Scotland but can a drive tackling the problem their work here? Robin,
:02:15. > :02:20.stealing, committing acts of violence. For James Horton, life as
:02:20. > :02:24.a gang member was a rite of passage. He found himself spending 12 years
:02:24. > :02:29.on death row following his conviction for the murder of a rival
:02:29. > :02:34.drug dealer. The conviction was overturned and on his release James
:02:34. > :02:42.decided it was time to change. starting to feel for people and I
:02:42. > :02:47.started having sad feelings about people that I had wronged, so the
:02:47. > :02:53.process was taking place and I wanted to be free. I did not know
:02:53. > :02:58.what I would do. James now works with Homeboy Industries an
:02:58. > :03:04.organisation providing support for former gang members. Its founder
:03:04. > :03:10.says he was simply responding to demand. We started the programme
:03:10. > :03:16.because gang members said they needed jobs. We started a school
:03:16. > :03:23.first and once they came to our school, they said if only we had
:03:23. > :03:28.jobs so we tried to find felony friendly employers. Scottish police
:03:28. > :03:34.are now keen to see if the model can tackle gang violence here and it is
:03:34. > :03:39.not the first time they have looked towards the US for help. In October
:03:39. > :03:43.2008 a meeting was held at the Glasgow Sheriff Court building. More
:03:43. > :03:46.than 100 gang members were brought face to face with police officers
:03:46. > :03:51.and church leaders. They were offered help to find jobs and were
:03:51. > :04:01.warned if they did not fight stop back stop fighting they would
:04:01. > :04:04.
:04:04. > :04:08.pursued. Violence crime halved in two years leading to talk of a
:04:08. > :04:15.Boston miracle. Police in Glasgow also saw a drop in violent scenes
:04:15. > :04:21.like these but there were drawbacks. When I say to people, don't be part
:04:21. > :04:27.of that gang, be part of our bus, they did not have the job skills,
:04:27. > :04:32.the skills to get up in the morning and work. That is what is missing.
:04:32. > :04:37.What about the cost of these services? Organisations like Homeboy
:04:37. > :04:42.Industries need millions to run but the authorities in Scotland insist
:04:42. > :04:48.they are not an imported gimmick but a tried and trusted approach which
:04:48. > :04:52.they are confident will produce results. I met up with Father Greg
:04:52. > :05:01.Boyle be founder of Homeboy Industries and asked him how turning
:05:01. > :05:08.making tortillaturns someone away from crime.
:05:08. > :05:18.95% of all gang members want what I think is offered at Homeboy
:05:18. > :05:20.
:05:20. > :05:27.Industries which is a way out. Anything really that is a purposeful
:05:27. > :05:33.activity and gainful employment. Does that proportion of gang members
:05:33. > :05:42.want what you have to offer, why do they not turn up at the door?
:05:42. > :05:45.Because most are stuck in a dark place or are traumatised. They find
:05:45. > :05:49.it a hard time to transform their lives and their pain so they
:05:49. > :05:57.continue to transmit its so sometimes it is difficult to make
:05:57. > :06:04.that step. Those that come to you what proportion of them reoffend?
:06:04. > :06:10.About 75% of them stay on the path where we would all want them to
:06:10. > :06:17.stay, the retention rate. But that is the opposite of what the fat of
:06:17. > :06:24.all levels and limits that measure success if active nationally in the
:06:24. > :06:32.US. About 30%, that is the retention rate of those who stay programmed
:06:32. > :06:35.and not able to go back to reoffend. If you are having so much
:06:35. > :06:41.more success than official programmes, why doesn't government
:06:41. > :06:46.invest more in what you do? would think it would be logical for
:06:46. > :06:52.them to do that but sometimes it is difficult for them to see the forest
:06:52. > :06:58.for the trees. They do not see the entire picture of how the jobs and
:06:58. > :07:04.the help we offer is really contextualised, a therapeutic
:07:04. > :07:11.community where people regain a certain amount of resilience and
:07:11. > :07:15.repair their lives. You talk about a therapeutic community, for others,
:07:15. > :07:21.people who have been offended by those you are working with, they see
:07:21. > :07:27.this group not as people with needs but people who are criminals.
:07:27. > :07:34.Shouldn't criminals be punished? Most of them have gone on to prison
:07:34. > :07:41.and have, to us out of prison so the principle of Homeboy Industries is a
:07:41. > :07:48.second chance and a healthy respect for what folks have to carry, which
:07:48. > :07:55.is considerable. Anyone engaged in any crime is living out of some deep
:07:55. > :08:03.wound and so we try to address that, that is why we are effective.
:08:03. > :08:08.The diagnosis is right. It is not about and ask for them, they are
:08:08. > :08:17.folks who are incredibly traumatised people and that is what their crime
:08:17. > :08:24.and their gang life was all about. But if there is carrot, is there not
:08:24. > :08:28.also the need for a stick? Is that not the lesson from Boston, people
:08:28. > :08:34.who are in gangs and following a path of offending behaviour also
:08:34. > :08:38.need to be confronted? I have my issues with the Boston model because
:08:39. > :08:43.a lot of times it does not understand what this is about and
:08:43. > :08:50.that is why there has never been a healthy treatment plan that was born
:08:50. > :08:55.of a bad diagnosis. You would want to get this right. The outsider view
:08:55. > :09:00.is they made choices but not all choices were created equal. Some
:09:00. > :09:04.were very difficult to embrace especially when you live in
:09:04. > :09:13.communities like that I work in. wait for people to come to you but
:09:13. > :09:20.does that not mean that some of the most needy, the hardest core of
:09:20. > :09:26.offenders always beyond reach? one is beyond reach and redemption
:09:26. > :09:33.is possible to anyone who is still breathing. But if you do not look
:09:33. > :09:43.for them, some of them will not come to you? It takes what it takes for
:09:43. > :09:43.
:09:43. > :09:48.someone to take the step towards health. They have to take that step.
:09:48. > :09:53.Otherwise it will not work. You could drag them in or the police
:09:53. > :09:59.could drag them in but if he is not willing to work on himself and to
:09:59. > :10:07.come to terms with his own past and to redirect his life, it will never
:10:07. > :10:17.work. Why do you think that what has had some success in LA but also work
:10:17. > :10:17.
:10:17. > :10:22.in Glasgow? I do not pretend to Glasgow. You are always trying to
:10:22. > :10:28.find the connective tissue, the thing that will connect the two
:10:28. > :10:35.cities and the common denominator is this lethal absence of hope. If you
:10:35. > :10:39.cannot infuse a sense of hope into children, that is the route that
:10:39. > :10:44.joins our two cities and the two different cultural realities from
:10:44. > :10:51.the gangs that you have here and the gangs there. Given those differences
:10:51. > :10:56.might we need to do things differently here? Los Angeles is an
:10:56. > :11:01.anomaly, it is the gang capital of the world so it is a different
:11:01. > :11:07.reality. It would not be that you would do think so much differently
:11:07. > :11:16.as you would apply the things that we do here inasmuch as they work and
:11:16. > :11:20.make sense. There are a lot of things that would not make sense,
:11:20. > :11:30.but it is there. It is an obstacle to employment and it is very
:11:30. > :11:31.
:11:31. > :11:34.dominant. Thank you very much indeed for talking to us. You William
:11:34. > :11:40.McIlvanney is, without doubt, one of the great Scottish writers of the
:11:40. > :11:45.20th century. His contemporary Alan Massie recently described him as
:11:45. > :11:47."both moralist and artist, and a writer to be cherished." He is, he
:11:47. > :11:50.says, Scotland's Albert Camus. Well, McIlvanney's celebrated Laidlaw
:11:50. > :11:53.trilogy has just been republished and I'll be speaking to him about
:11:54. > :11:56.that in a moment. But first, this extract read by the author himself
:11:56. > :12:01.from Suffragettes for Decency, an essay about the lives of three
:12:01. > :12:07.sisters growing up in Kilmarnock. One of those girls, ill and, with
:12:07. > :12:13.her four children. Like so many women of third generation she had
:12:13. > :12:19.formidable strength of character and endurance, living until she was 95.
:12:19. > :12:25.Apparently towards the end of her life, she had a nightly ritual,
:12:25. > :12:32.settled in bed, she would read the cards she had received from her
:12:32. > :12:38.extended family, a small story of love she had inspired. It was her
:12:38. > :12:44.version of miser's store. What she had instead of money. One card
:12:44. > :12:52.contained a small podium I had written for her. -- small thorium.
:12:52. > :12:57.It is called, visiting my mother in my mind. I do not know the thoughts
:12:57. > :13:07.that come in companions to your syncing, whether your heart was
:13:07. > :13:08.
:13:08. > :13:13.raging. I've even ghosts of past they? Do you doubt they are in the
:13:13. > :13:23.dark the meaning of your living? If it has been a waste and unrequited
:13:23. > :13:24.
:13:24. > :13:28.giving. I have come here to see that all your thoughts are... You have
:13:28. > :13:38.been an island in a sea after wild waters. You have been a lesson in
:13:38. > :13:40.
:13:40. > :13:47.how to be and noble as before. clause.
:13:47. > :13:51.It sounds that your mother was a big influence on you. She was huge. Like
:13:51. > :13:58.so many working-class women of that are, they were the linchpin of
:13:58. > :14:02.family. They were the coherent element in your life. They taught
:14:02. > :14:11.you right from wrong and frequently in very subtle ways. My mother would
:14:11. > :14:17.just say, that is not what you do, son. That was like the 11th
:14:17. > :14:23.Commandment. It sorted you out quickly. You are a lot younger than
:14:23. > :14:31.your mother was when you wrote that. I do wonder what thoughts have
:14:31. > :14:35.become your companions at this stage in your life. I suppose one of the
:14:35. > :14:43.obvious things, since I try to write, is the awareness of the
:14:43. > :14:51.diminishing of time. If I'm going to write anything else, I had better
:14:51. > :15:01.get on with it. The other is, I think it is true of just about
:15:01. > :15:06.
:15:06. > :15:11.anybody, the realisation of what you have not achieved. Such as?Places I
:15:11. > :15:18.wanted to go to, things I wanted to do, books I wanted to write and
:15:18. > :15:26.haven't. But you are going to write more, aren't you? Thanks for telling
:15:26. > :15:32.me. I am going to try. I am notoriously slow in writing. I write
:15:33. > :15:39.from compulsion and unless I get the compulsion, I do not write. I write
:15:39. > :15:44.endlessly, but it is snippets of ideas. I have two weeks for them to
:15:44. > :15:51.cohere into what I believe could be a book. When you reflect on what you
:15:51. > :15:56.have written before, and the Glasgow you have put down in print, how does
:15:56. > :16:05.that guy is goal of the 1970s and 1980s computer with the Glasgow of
:16:05. > :16:10.today? -- that Glasgow. Like anywhere, vastly different. I
:16:10. > :16:18.recently did an audio version. For the first time I reread it sentence
:16:18. > :16:23.by sentence. It struck me, I have written a historical novel here.
:16:23. > :16:28.There are so many differences like the Internet and cellphones. Also
:16:28. > :16:32.small differences which reflect your difference about the city, you do
:16:32. > :16:42.not smoke in pubs now, there are no conduct tours on buses. It is all
:16:42. > :16:49.automated. -- conductors on buses. The speed of change in our society
:16:49. > :16:56.has been amazing. Looking at Glasgow, the physical differences
:16:56. > :16:59.are profound. If you read Laidlaw tonight, talking about the big
:16:59. > :17:04.housing estates as architectural dumps where they are and loaded
:17:04. > :17:13.people. They no longer exist. think some are still there but they
:17:13. > :17:23.are less dominant. I came here first as a student at the University and
:17:23. > :17:23.
:17:23. > :17:32.fell in love with the town. There are a lot of thriving communities
:17:32. > :17:35.that it seemed to me, it was Labour councils which didn't surprisingly,
:17:35. > :17:40.ultimately there are working-class aspiration was an inside toilet.
:17:40. > :17:45.There were whole communities like the Gorbals in places where I think
:17:45. > :17:50.they could have reserved the tenements rather than reason to the
:17:50. > :17:54.ground so that Glasgow had retained its identity, so much of it was
:17:54. > :18:04.obliterated. They pushed people out to the edges of the time without
:18:04. > :18:06.
:18:06. > :18:12.facilities. No pubs and shops. Politicians and others would say
:18:12. > :18:18.that welfare is much better now, it is healthier and that is less crime.
:18:18. > :18:26.Do you recognise these changes? they say that, I will believe it but
:18:26. > :18:30.I am not sure about it. I am not sure that is less crime. There is
:18:30. > :18:38.more apparent affluence but I would think there are still many people in
:18:38. > :18:44.deep trouble. Is it better now than it was? I do not know. I think it
:18:44. > :18:48.has always been a great city and it always will be. I do not think
:18:48. > :18:54.anybody in Glasgow should be in kind towards self-satisfaction that the
:18:54. > :18:58.job is done. You have seen a lot of political change in that period like
:18:58. > :19:04.the Scottish Parliament, has it tackled the problem she would like
:19:04. > :19:09.it to focus on? I do not know. It is still a very young parliament. I am
:19:09. > :19:15.glad it is there and I voted and canvassed for it. I am glad it is
:19:15. > :19:21.there, but I would say that if I have a disappointment with the
:19:21. > :19:26.current Scottish Parliament -- Scottish Parliament, it is the lack
:19:26. > :19:33.of vision. Even with the upcoming referendum, it is all about very
:19:33. > :19:37.small practical matters. Many of these are not even clarified,
:19:37. > :19:43.whether we get automatic entry into Europe for example, whether we have
:19:43. > :19:48.to find another currency. Beyond that, I do not see a lot of vision.
:19:48. > :19:56.It seems to me that politics in our time has become a paramedic
:19:56. > :20:02.politics. Like when Labour came in after the Thule government, they
:20:02. > :20:08.just decided that we would manage it more than a made but they did not
:20:08. > :20:13.change the system. -- after the Tory Government. I did not think there
:20:13. > :20:23.was any vision of trying to go beyond paramedic politics to see let
:20:23. > :20:25.
:20:25. > :20:29.us find a cure by socialist means. Do you see Independence as a
:20:29. > :20:38.possible route to your socialist vision being delivered? I would like
:20:38. > :20:44.to think so but since Labour came in, after Thatcher, they decided
:20:44. > :20:50.they would try to manage the system more benignly. I think the Labour
:20:50. > :20:57.Party has evaporated. It has become, as every party seems to have
:20:57. > :21:02.become, subject to the multinationals. The multinationals
:21:02. > :21:08.now use the world like a Monopoly board. There was a case in Brazil in
:21:08. > :21:15.2002, the elected left-wing government and within three months
:21:15. > :21:18.the government said, we are not in power because $6 billion was removed
:21:18. > :21:24.by multinationals which made it difficult to implement socialist
:21:24. > :21:30.policies. What I would love for the Scottish government is to regenerate
:21:30. > :21:38.the sense that you do not just manage society, she try to make it
:21:38. > :21:44.better and cure it sells, not minimise them. Doesn't matter
:21:44. > :21:50.whether we are Scottish state order UK state? That is a good question. I
:21:50. > :21:55.do not know, I would hope if we can avoid what happened to a country
:21:55. > :21:59.like Brazil, if we can avoid the money moving out because we are
:21:59. > :22:05.independent, it would be a good thing. There is was been a stronger
:22:05. > :22:12.tendency in Scotland towards a just society and towards fairness. If
:22:12. > :22:18.that remains, if there is a vision to do that, it might help us to be
:22:18. > :22:26.independent. How does a few to be back in print, for your life work to
:22:26. > :22:33.be fully reprinted? It feels terrific. It's like being a
:22:33. > :22:42.born-again writer. All the books were out of print. Fortunately,
:22:42. > :22:47.Canongate came along and made a very decent offer to me. As a publisher,
:22:47. > :22:54.they are Pentecostal. They publish with passion. I just feel very lucky
:22:54. > :22:57.to be republished firstly and secondly to be republished by
:22:57. > :23:03.Canongate because if it doesn't work with them, it would not work with
:23:04. > :23:08.anyone else. Thank you very much for coming in to talk with us.