Anger And Disbelief After Time Called On ‘Last-Chance Saloon’

It was intended to confront some of Scotland’s wildest young men and give them the opportunity to turn their lives around. Dubbed the “last-chance saloon”, the Airborne initiative – a nine-week “boot camp” at Braidwood House in Lanarkshire – tackled the most persistent offending behaviour and attempted to steer youths on to the right path.

But in 2004, ministers pulled almost £600,000 of annual funding amid claims the project had failed to perform. Young people were instead turned back on to the street or sent to court.

Hugh Henry, the then deputy justice minister, said the decision to end funding for the Airborne initiative – which opened in 1994 to provide residential courses for repeat offenders aged 18 to 25 – was taken in the light of “a body of evidence” collected from evaluation and inspection reports.

But some insiders in the criminal justice system claimed the real reason for the decision was the acute embarrassment felt by Scottish Executive ministers who saw the warts-and-all television programme Chancers, which showed young people on the scheme taking drugs and absconding.

Viewers were treated to a provocative piece of reality TV, and it sent shockwaves through the Executive. The 21 who were filmed on the course were often violent and abusive – they had already amassed 250 convictions and served 80 years in jail between them.

The decision to close Airborne triggered a storm of protest from experts and supporters of the unit.

Although reoffending rates were high, graduates were said to be significantly less likely to fall foul of the law again than young men sent to jail. Researchers from Stirling University suggest that the facility reduced reconviction rates by 21 per cent, compared with offenders who received alternative disposals.

The nine weeks of the course were spent training the offenders in cognitive skills, with the hope that they would be forced to consider their crimes and take responsibility for their actions.

Many of them had been the victims of broken homes, whose lives have been blighted by drink and drugs. Others had little or no experience of formal classroom-based education.

The SNP pledged in its election manifesto to reinstate the scheme, which it says provides a far cheaper and more effective route than prison for hardcore young criminals.

Kenny MacAskill, the justice secretary, said last year that action had to be taken to tackle “a burgeoning prison population and high reoffending rates”.

He went on: “Airborne is a last-chance saloon; it does work and it does so in a cost-effective manner that’s been proven.”

He said that it was a cheaper alternative to custody. At the time of its closure, a place at Airborne cost £116 a week compared with £574 for a prison place.

Clive Fairweather, the former chief inspector of Scotland’s prisons, was among those calling Airborne to reopen.

He said the project had been the only one of its kind in Scotland and the decision to close it meant a vast amount of work had been wasted.

A spokesman for the Executive said discussions had taken place with the trustees of the initiative “to see how we can get elements of Airborne woven into community options open to the courts, particularly for the most serious young male offenders”.