In the 1970s HMP Glenochil was extended and became a Young Offenders Institution.

In the 1980s four blocks were built to house young adult male offenders until HMYOI Polmont took over those duties in 2003.

The four blocks, or halls, are equipped with 124 cells on each of the three levels with each cell having a window to let in natural light.

There is also a segregation unit within the jail. It is now one of the main prisons for sex offenders in Scotland and those with a lifelong restriction order, with a capacity of 670.

The prisoners are over 21, male, and are serving four or more years. All have come from other prisons following their convictions.

Clackmannanshire Council has a dedicated social work team working there as part of the Criminal Justice Service. Their aim is to stop reoffending.

During the 1980s Glenochil saw a spate of suicides, and serious assaults between prisoners took place in the mid-2000s with prison staff also being assaulted by inmates.

A riot took place in 1994 and in early 1997 three prisoners held a nurse and a prison warder hostage.

In November 2014 two prison officers were injured in a knife attack and in February 2018 convicted murderer Michael Mowat was killed when prisoner Steven McIvor attacked him with a homemade knife. He was sentenced to 12 years for the killing.

In August 2017 a new support centre opened for the families of inmates to provide support and information on financial matters, housing and the supporting of the children of prisoners. It is run by Stirling Interfaith Community Justice Group.

In March 2020, the prisoners began making their own safes to stop others stealing their belongings at the site’s engineering work-sheds.

Among the prisoners held at Glenochil were Angus Sinclair, who was charged in connection with the World’s End murders in Edinburgh in the 1970s. He was convicted of killing 17 year olds Helen Scott and Christine Eadie in 1977.

Following his double jeopardy trial at the High Court in Edinburgh in 2014, he was sentenced to a minimum of 37 years, the longest ever handed down in Scottish legal history. He died at Glenochil in March 2019.

Paul Ferris was 17 when he was convicted of knife attacks on the Welsh brothers in Glasgow, who had tormented him since childhood.

He spent three months at the prison around 1980.

A few years later he worked for Glasgow gangster Arthur Thompson for a time as an enforcer after he came to Thompson’s attention. Ferris is now an author.