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A Sense of Freedom
Foreword by Irvine Welsh
'My life sentence had actually started the day I left my mother's womb...'
Jimmy Boyle grew up in Glasgow’s Gorbals. All around him the world was drinking, fighting and thieving. To survive, he too had to fight and steal… Kids’ gangs led to trouble with the police. Approved schools led to Borstal, and Jimmy was on his way to a career in crime.
By his twenties he was a hardened villain, sleeping with prostitutes, running shebeens and money-lending rackets. Then they nailed him for murder. The sentence was life – the brutal, degrading eternity of a broken spirit in the prisons of Peterhead and Inverness. Thankfully, Jimmy was able to turn his life around inside the prison walls and eventually released on parole.
A Sense of Freedom is a searing indictment of a society that uses prison bars and brutality to destroy a man's humanity and at the same time an outstanding testament to one man's ability to survive, to find a new life, a new creativity, and a new alternative.
'My life sentence had actually started the day I left my mother's womb...'
Jimmy Boyle grew up in Glasgow’s Gorbals. All around him the world was drinking, fighting and thieving. To survive, he too had to fight and steal… Kids’ gangs led to trouble with the police. Approved schools led to Borstal, and Jimmy was on his way to a career in crime.
By his twenties he was a hardened villain, sleeping with prostitutes, running shebeens and money-lending rackets. Then they nailed him for murder. The sentence was life – the brutal, degrading eternity of a broken spirit in the prisons of Peterhead and Inverness. Thankfully, Jimmy was able to turn his life around inside the prison walls and eventually released on parole.
A Sense of Freedom is a searing indictment of a society that uses prison bars and brutality to destroy a man's humanity and at the same time an outstanding testament to one man's ability to survive, to find a new life, a new creativity, and a new alternative.
272 pages, Paperback
First published September 9, 1977
68 people are currently reading
332 people want to read
About the author
Jimmy Boyle
10 books5 followersJames Boyle is a Scottish former gangster and convicted murderer who became a sculptor and novelist after his release from prison.
In 1967, Boyle was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of another gangland figure, William "Babs" Rooney. He served fourteen years before his release in 1980. Boyle has always denied killing Rooney but has acknowledged having been a violent and sometimes ruthless moneylender from the Gorbals, one of the roughest and most deprived areas of Glasgow. During his incarceration in the special unit of Barlinnie Prison, he turned to art and wrote an autobiography, A Sense of Freedom (1977), which was later turned into a film of the same name.
Boyle has published Pain of Confinement: Prison Diaries (1984), and a novel, Hero of the Underworld (1999). The latter was adapted for a French film, La Rage et le Rêve des Condamnés (The Anger and Dreams of the Condemned), and won the best documentary prize at the Fifa Montreal awards in 2002. He also wrote a novel, A Stolen Smile, which is about the theft of the Mona Lisa and how it ends up hidden on a Scottish housing scheme.
In 1967, Boyle was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of another gangland figure, William "Babs" Rooney. He served fourteen years before his release in 1980. Boyle has always denied killing Rooney but has acknowledged having been a violent and sometimes ruthless moneylender from the Gorbals, one of the roughest and most deprived areas of Glasgow. During his incarceration in the special unit of Barlinnie Prison, he turned to art and wrote an autobiography, A Sense of Freedom (1977), which was later turned into a film of the same name.
Boyle has published Pain of Confinement: Prison Diaries (1984), and a novel, Hero of the Underworld (1999). The latter was adapted for a French film, La Rage et le Rêve des Condamnés (The Anger and Dreams of the Condemned), and won the best documentary prize at the Fifa Montreal awards in 2002. He also wrote a novel, A Stolen Smile, which is about the theft of the Mona Lisa and how it ends up hidden on a Scottish housing scheme.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
October 28, 2018
I bought this book because I learnt that it was the first book (in a series of two) of the prison story of Jimmy Boyle, a scottish bad guy.
The Pain Of Confinement Prison Diaries
Well, I left this book aside for two weeks and honestly didn’t know any more why I bought it. Whilst reading it, I had no clue why in earth I bought this book. It was until part 3 (around page 170 of 270), that the real prison story started. I understood then why I bought the book.
The first two parts (until page 170), were only mediocre at best. This contained the story of his youth and pre-prison years. The writing style of the author is also not that great and these 170 deserve between two and at three stars. I really got the impression that the author wasn’t completely open and honest in the crimes he committed.
The real great part started after page 170. The story becomes very captivating and showed also the misuse of prisoners by the guards. The prison story warrants between four and five stars. Again the writing style of the author isn’t that great, but this was more than compensated for by the captivating story itself.
Overall, I decided to give this book still an overall score of three stars. The part of the story that waa about his prison years was good, but could not compensate for his sloppy writing style and relative dull first part.
The Pain Of Confinement Prison Diaries
Well, I left this book aside for two weeks and honestly didn’t know any more why I bought it. Whilst reading it, I had no clue why in earth I bought this book. It was until part 3 (around page 170 of 270), that the real prison story started. I understood then why I bought the book.
The first two parts (until page 170), were only mediocre at best. This contained the story of his youth and pre-prison years. The writing style of the author is also not that great and these 170 deserve between two and at three stars. I really got the impression that the author wasn’t completely open and honest in the crimes he committed.
The real great part started after page 170. The story becomes very captivating and showed also the misuse of prisoners by the guards. The prison story warrants between four and five stars. Again the writing style of the author isn’t that great, but this was more than compensated for by the captivating story itself.
Overall, I decided to give this book still an overall score of three stars. The part of the story that waa about his prison years was good, but could not compensate for his sloppy writing style and relative dull first part.
November 23, 2016
I have heard it being said that Crime does not pay! Furthermore, it is written that the wage os sin is death. Jimmy Boyle in his book A sense of Freedom shares his story on what it is like to be on the opposing side of the law. As individuals we almost always have a different view of life. We have rights buy we also have duties. We say that somebody is a criminal when he or she misuses his or her freedom in a manner that hurts others.
I must be honest, it is very difficult to sympathise with the author of the book considering his criminal past. I am not also very quick to approve of the authorities' way of handling desent. The society has put in place mechanisms of dealing with people who contravenes the law. They are locked up. But, in prison, the laws of the jungle reigns supreme. The guards are brutal ans bent to breaking a person in both body, mind, and soul. Jimmy Boyle at some point contemplated suicide. Life in prison was so unbearable. On top of a life sentence, there was always the ugly violence on the part of the police.
This is the story of his life. A life sentence that was imposed at the time of birth by his mother.
I must be honest, it is very difficult to sympathise with the author of the book considering his criminal past. I am not also very quick to approve of the authorities' way of handling desent. The society has put in place mechanisms of dealing with people who contravenes the law. They are locked up. But, in prison, the laws of the jungle reigns supreme. The guards are brutal ans bent to breaking a person in both body, mind, and soul. Jimmy Boyle at some point contemplated suicide. Life in prison was so unbearable. On top of a life sentence, there was always the ugly violence on the part of the police.
This is the story of his life. A life sentence that was imposed at the time of birth by his mother.
December 15, 2023
An interesting read and surprised how somebody so involved in the criminal world could suddenly turn their life around so completely
June 18, 2025
One of the most remarkable books I've ever read. Reminds me of Crime and Punishment in terms of honesty and personal insights, and also the Road to Wigan Pier in terms of its detail of working class life. It was also a landmark in Scottish publishing in that it was the first working class voice of that generation as Scottish publishing had virtually disappeared after WW2 and only came to life in the 1970s, with this book at its forefront.
November 1, 2019
Mixed feelings
Not sure how i felt about this book, the prison system was tough and Jimmy Boyle had some very bad experiences in there Involving the guards, but he wasn't any better himself before he ended up in prison. But he went on to lead a better life , and said he was sorry to all the people he had hurt, I hope he truly was.
Not sure how i felt about this book, the prison system was tough and Jimmy Boyle had some very bad experiences in there Involving the guards, but he wasn't any better himself before he ended up in prison. But he went on to lead a better life , and said he was sorry to all the people he had hurt, I hope he truly was.
October 24, 2017
Skull crushing
The almost unimaginable degree of violence and suffering finally culminates in a surprising solution, which has profound implications for the criminal culture and human potential.
The almost unimaginable degree of violence and suffering finally culminates in a surprising solution, which has profound implications for the criminal culture and human potential.
November 29, 2018
This book blew me away. I had never heard of this guy until I read about him and his book in a Charlie Bronson book. I have ordered the sequel.
December 18, 2020
Boyle was at one time dubbed by tabloid newspapers as the most violent man in Scotland. The book is an account of his life and, in part, a description of why he feels that designation was perhaps unwarranted. Not that he was in any way a shrinking violet. I most likely would never have read this had it not been on that 100 best Scottish Books list. That the book is there is most probably due to the light it shed on the conditions inside Scottish prisons during the author's various incarcerations, his attempts to stand up against them and the violence to which he was treated in order to control his (and other unco-operative - ie recalcitrant – prisoners’) behaviour, his rebellions against the system and those upholding it at times channelled into what have come to be known as “dirty” protests.
The early parts dealing with Boyle’s childhood and early adolecscence had echoes of No Mean City - back courts, middens, rooms-and-kitchens, single ends, initiation into crime and violence - not least in the self-imposed pressure to act up to the stereotype of the hard man. Boyle’s slide into a life of crime was compounded by poor schooling combined with lack of expectations, and an apparent relative ease of committing petty crimes without detection. Despite his revulsion at young offenders’ institutions and Borstal, on coming out he quickly fell back into his old ways and progressed into more serious crimes.
He was twice tried for murder but acquitted the first time – and he claims he was unaware of and therefore not responsible for acts of imntimidation against witnesses which occurred while he was on remand. By his account he was innocent of the murder for which he was found guilty and suggests that evidence against him was planted by the police who also put pressure on witnesses to testify against him. But after that earlier acquittal (and no doubt because of his reputation) they were out to get him. (In the afterword to this edition he provides the identity of the real culprit; something he had not done when the book was first published in 1977. Honour amongst thieves, and all that.) For that reason and the harsh conditions inside, he saw police and prison officers both, as enemies and acted accordingly. The same is obviously true in reverse. He was seen, justifiably, as a danger.
His life was turned round when he was taken in by the Barlinnie Special Unit, set up to provide a more ameliorative means of coping with prisoners and to rehabilitate them. An art tutor left behind some modelling clay one day, Boyle worked with it and so found he had a talent for sculpture. Almost as an aside he reflects on the mutual incomprehension of the guards and prisoners; while the former still saw them as ravening wolves, he says it would never have entered the heads of the latter to harm any woman entering the unit as a visitor.
The Special Unit did not succeed with all its inmates and was the subject of suspicion by some in authority who thought it was ‘soft’ on prisoners. It closed in 1994. Irvine Welsh’s introduction to this edition laments its passing and the deterioration of social conditions in Scotland in the years since, the increase in drug use etc, the loss of an escape hatch via education, not to mention the overcrowding in prisons leaving them nothing more than containment facilities “with rehabilitation pretty much an afterthought.”
It has to be said, poor schooling and Boyle’s lack of interest in it or not, the book is well-written, even though it occasionally feels the need to define terms such as “steamie” and “altar boy” which are surely widely known, certainly in Scotland.
The early parts dealing with Boyle’s childhood and early adolecscence had echoes of No Mean City - back courts, middens, rooms-and-kitchens, single ends, initiation into crime and violence - not least in the self-imposed pressure to act up to the stereotype of the hard man. Boyle’s slide into a life of crime was compounded by poor schooling combined with lack of expectations, and an apparent relative ease of committing petty crimes without detection. Despite his revulsion at young offenders’ institutions and Borstal, on coming out he quickly fell back into his old ways and progressed into more serious crimes.
He was twice tried for murder but acquitted the first time – and he claims he was unaware of and therefore not responsible for acts of imntimidation against witnesses which occurred while he was on remand. By his account he was innocent of the murder for which he was found guilty and suggests that evidence against him was planted by the police who also put pressure on witnesses to testify against him. But after that earlier acquittal (and no doubt because of his reputation) they were out to get him. (In the afterword to this edition he provides the identity of the real culprit; something he had not done when the book was first published in 1977. Honour amongst thieves, and all that.) For that reason and the harsh conditions inside, he saw police and prison officers both, as enemies and acted accordingly. The same is obviously true in reverse. He was seen, justifiably, as a danger.
His life was turned round when he was taken in by the Barlinnie Special Unit, set up to provide a more ameliorative means of coping with prisoners and to rehabilitate them. An art tutor left behind some modelling clay one day, Boyle worked with it and so found he had a talent for sculpture. Almost as an aside he reflects on the mutual incomprehension of the guards and prisoners; while the former still saw them as ravening wolves, he says it would never have entered the heads of the latter to harm any woman entering the unit as a visitor.
The Special Unit did not succeed with all its inmates and was the subject of suspicion by some in authority who thought it was ‘soft’ on prisoners. It closed in 1994. Irvine Welsh’s introduction to this edition laments its passing and the deterioration of social conditions in Scotland in the years since, the increase in drug use etc, the loss of an escape hatch via education, not to mention the overcrowding in prisons leaving them nothing more than containment facilities “with rehabilitation pretty much an afterthought.”
It has to be said, poor schooling and Boyle’s lack of interest in it or not, the book is well-written, even though it occasionally feels the need to define terms such as “steamie” and “altar boy” which are surely widely known, certainly in Scotland.
April 27, 2020
Brutally honest and thought provoking, first read this book 20 years ago and it seems even more relevant in today's society. Jimmy journey from gangster to sculptor & community worker is truly inspirational
Brutally honest and thought provoking, I first read this book 20 years ago and it is just as relevant in today's society. Jimmys journey from hardened gangster to sculptor, community worker and father is truly inspirational.
Brutally honest and thought provoking, I first read this book 20 years ago and it is just as relevant in today's society. Jimmys journey from hardened gangster to sculptor, community worker and father is truly inspirational.
April 16, 2019
A Sense of Futility
I read this book first time around as a fresh faces graduate in Social Sciences here in Glasgow. A generation later , I find the whole thing terribly depressing. We seem to have learned very little and forgotten a lot of the promising outlook that was prevalent thirty years ago. Good luck to J.B. He made it despite....!!
I read this book first time around as a fresh faces graduate in Social Sciences here in Glasgow. A generation later , I find the whole thing terribly depressing. We seem to have learned very little and forgotten a lot of the promising outlook that was prevalent thirty years ago. Good luck to J.B. He made it despite....!!
July 20, 2024
That eternal question, would nutters act differently if given the right support. Not all who grow up in circumstances similar to those in which Boyle did reacted like he did, in fact most didn't, which maybe means this is just one individual's life into which we shouldn't read too much.
November 22, 2016
An absolute belter of an autobiography
Jimmy Boyle shows how you needn't continue leading a life you're expected to live. A triumph of the human spirit and written with such charm and eloquence.
Jimmy Boyle shows how you needn't continue leading a life you're expected to live. A triumph of the human spirit and written with such charm and eloquence.
December 19, 2017
My love of gangsters brought me to this book
November 22, 2018
Went on too long
This was a long and very challenging book of how one man changed a system. And how he did it.
This was a long and very challenging book of how one man changed a system. And how he did it.
January 21, 2020
I LOVE THIS BOOK REMINDS ME OF SOME ONE I NO. NICE BOOK.
May 23, 2020
Fascinating book!
A very interesting read - a difficult life which illustrates clearly the need for prison reform. Horrifying treatment of prisoners which must be corrected.
A very interesting read - a difficult life which illustrates clearly the need for prison reform. Horrifying treatment of prisoners which must be corrected.
August 22, 2023
Very interesting true story of a man reformed
We must try to get to the root of the problems
Love live work its amazing the pain.we can endure
We must try to get to the root of the problems
Love live work its amazing the pain.we can endure
December 30, 2025
a bit dated - but a classic - tales of gangland and prison absolutely brutal and wild
August 17, 2018
Fantastic
A worthwhile read that captures a moment in time, I wish there had been more to read, worth the small cost!
A worthwhile read that captures a moment in time, I wish there had been more to read, worth the small cost!
September 27, 2016
An amazing book indeed..
Truly amazing. I downloaded this book because Danny Boyle and Irvine Welsh said it was life changing. It's fantastic. Certainly the inspiration for the Blade Artist by Irvine Welsh. Let's hope Jimmy's hopes after republishing come true and the debate is reopened over what prison really is for.
Truly amazing. I downloaded this book because Danny Boyle and Irvine Welsh said it was life changing. It's fantastic. Certainly the inspiration for the Blade Artist by Irvine Welsh. Let's hope Jimmy's hopes after republishing come true and the debate is reopened over what prison really is for.
January 4, 2024
A self serving account from one of the most feared gangsters in Glasgow’s history. Another bad guy trying to masquerade as a misunderstood person.
April 14, 2017
A dark and intriguing glance into the Glasgow underworld of the 60s. This takes us from Jimmy's harsh upbringing in 40s/50s Gorbals in Glasgow's then inner slums into his stumbling into criminal behaviour and repeated trips to some damaging institutions that seem more effective at punishment and bullying than correcting and reforming.
My dad grew up in the same area at the same time and I remember he told me that Boyle once stole his pigeons and so I was amused to find him admitting to stealing pigeons in here. It's hard to fathom just how rife and damaging the poverty was back then, not just in Glasgow but in most of Britain's big cities. Boyle writes well and you really get a feel for the period. This makes for compelling and at times shocking reading.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews