A prominent Dundee academic has said fly fishing trips for prisoners at Castle Huntly could prevent terrorism.
Last week it emerged inmates at the open prison had been taken fishing.
The scheme was criticised by the Scottish Conservatives, who said: “Many people will be surprised to learn that efforts to tackle reoffending should include courses on fly fishing.”
Suzanne Zeedyk is a senior lecturer in developmental psychology at Dundee University and she has published several articles about the links between terrorism and previous life experience.
She claims that preventing and healing trauma in children and prisoners can prevent atrocities like those seen in Paris last week.
Suzanne said: “Of the three men who committed last week’s atrocities, two were orphaned children. The brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi were abandoned by their parents and raised in the French care system.
“This is a description that applies to so many young people who leave care lost, angry, wanting to matter to someone.”
She said the fishing trips or the three-course Christmas dinners given to inmates that also attracted controversy provide security and comfort that can prevent traumatised people falling under the spell of crime or terrorism.
“Prisons are warehouses of traumatised people 40% of prisoners under 21 have spent time in the care system, which compares to 2% in the general population.
“The likelihood is that the majority of the eight men who earned the right to go on that fishing trip had never been taken on a fishing trip as a child. “Had someone done that with them earlier in their lives, perhaps they would not have been in prison today.
“The abused become abusers, the disconnected become dangerous. We will stop terrorism when we get to grips with the disastrous effects of disconnection.”
Prison governor Jacqueline Clinton said: “The prison regime at Castle Huntly fosters personal responsibility by encouraging carefully supported social activities alongside work. A huge amount of learning comes from these experiences.”