Fifty Years in the System
Description:... From the age of nine, Jimmy Laing lived under lock and key, first at the Baldovan mental institution and then at Carstairs State Hospital, the Scottish equivalent of Broadmoor. He was never tried or sentenced, for he had committed no crime. He was simply the victim of the system of dealing with problem children in the 1930s. Yet once in that system, he was certified insane and remained its captive for nearly 50 years, experiencing brutality and sexual harassment by staff and inmates, and witnessing theft, corruption and even murder. His long struggle to prove his sanity ended with conditional release in 1987.
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