'Culture of disbelief' must come to an end

On 11 November 2007, at Dungravel Immigration Reception Centre (IRC), Mr BM was taken from his bed, pinned to the floor face up, kicked over his whole body, and his head was smashed against a coffee table. Mr BM alleges that he was assaulted by seven detention custody officers in the presence of the IRC Manager. Mr BM was examined two days later by Dr Charmian Goldwyn, who said: “the injuries that Mr BM sustained are highly consistent with the assault as he describes.”

This is just one of almost 300 cases of assault allegedly perpetrated by staff employed by the Home Office or by private companies contracted by the Home Office to run detention centres and to escort detainees when being moved between centres or deported. These cases have been documented in a report, published in July 2008, entitled Outsourcing Abuse: The use and misuse of state sanctioned force during the detention and removal of asylum seekers. The authors of the dossier, Harriet Wistrich, Dr Frank Arnold and Emma Ginn claim this is only "the tip of the iceberg” of a “seemingly systematic abuse of one of the most vulnerable communities of people in our society.” They allege that the abuse they uncovered “may amount to state-sanctioned violence”, as the Home Office is aware of an unacceptable level of alleged abuse through its complaints procedure. The actions described in the report, if substantiated, are in breach of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 and the Human Rights Act 1998.

There are ten IRCs in the UK, and immigration detainees are also held in prisons, police cells and short term holding facilities (STHF). Detainees include asylum seekers with claims pending, rejected asylum seekers, “overstayers”, undocumented migrants and ex-foreign national prisoners. There is no legal time limit for the detention of immigrants, and they receive no automatic judicial oversight. This raises concerns that detainees, who in the majority of cases are innocent of any crime, are treated more like “hostages” than prisoners.

A spokesperson for the Refugee Council, the largest organisation in the UK working with asylum seekers, told The Journal: “No one should be detained in a detention centre, unless absolutely necessary. Detention is essentially a punishment for a criminal offence and the majority of these immigrants are innocent and are genuinely seeking refuge, having been traumatised by experiences in their country of origin. Detention is over-used, extremely distressing and, in the majority of cases, totally unnecessary; the government need to address these issues.”

Many refugees come to the UK to seek genuine asylum and escape persecution in their home countries. But time spent in an IRC can cause further trauma for the detainee, leading to increased mental health problems. The National Coalition of Anti Deportation Campaigns (NCADC) released figures in 2007, confirming that 1,517 immigration detainees were on suicide watch. Aside from the reported abuse going on in these centres, facilities and conditions in IRCs and STHFs can be shocking.

In a 2004 HM Chief Inspector of Prisons report on the unannounced inspection of four STHFs, it was documented that: “A young woman was held in the holding room who had miscarried a few days previously. She was subject to a live F2052SH self harm monitoring form because she kept asking for her baby and said she wanted to die. Having been delivered to the holding room in the morning, she was not due to be collected by another vehicle until more than six hours later. Apart from staff who had received aid training, there was no on-site healthcare.”

Furthermore, the complaint procedure for asylum seekers is complex and often is not perceived as independent. Authors of Outsourcing Abuse claim there is evidence to suggest “asylum seekers lodging complaints are subject to harassment and further abuse.” They argue that the authorities are reluctant and inadequate in investigating incidents and consequently the devices to protect immigrants are failing. The Complaints Audit Committee (CAC), set up by the Home Office to investigate complaints made about the conduct of staff, has found an appalling record in the handling of complaints: for example, only in 11 per cent of cases were positive evidence gathering steps (such as interviewing) taken.

The dossier is the most recent in a long succession that details the struggles detained immigrants face. Amanda Shah, assistant Director of Bail for Immigrant Detainees (BID), commenting on Outsourcing Abuse, told The Journal: “These are clearly not isolated cases, and demonstrate a fundamental problem within immigration detention centres. In recent years, official watchdogs, including the prisons inspector Anne Owers, have repeatedly sounded the alarm about inadequate safeguards in detention centres. It is high time that detainees' complaints of assault were properly investigated. We also hope that this scrutiny will lead to serious questions being asked about the system.”

As many public figures and NGOs have argued, it could be claimed that it is totally unjustifiable that, in the majority of cases, immigrants should be detained in such appalling conditions or subjected to abuse. Yet an opposing argument contends that the general public needs to be protected from the "foreign prisoners" that are detained in IRCs.

As is the case of the recent Vietnamese escapees who broke out on September 25 and 26 from Oakington IRC in Cambridgeshire, some detainees serve sentences in IRCs and are then expelled for minor offences – offences that British nationals would not normally be imprisoned for. The 352 capacity Oakington centre, was originally designed to hold asylum seekers, but has in recent years held a number of foreign prisoners awaiting deportation.

Louise Pirouet of Cambridge Oakington Concern (CAMOAK), an organisation which campaigns for the safeguards of detainees and raises questions about the use of the former RAF barracks as a detention centre, told The Journal: “There is a mixture of people at Oakington being detained for different reasons; some immigrants are on the way out after having served a sentence. However, problems arise as some of these men are married to British citizens and are being expelled for minor crimes, for example, motoring or minor drug offences, leaving behind an unsupported family who might be forced to rely on social security. There are no serious criminals at Oakington.”

Following a visit to Oakington earlier this year, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, added his name to the list of those who have criticised the way immigrants are treated in detention and separated from their families.

So why are detention centres increasingly being used, if as claimed, there is systematic abuse and poor conditions, the majority of detainees are not dangerous to the general public? Indeed, 40 per cent of detainees are eventually re-released back into the community. Not only, amidst a credit crunch, does it put a drain on the government’s financial resources—it was estimated by the Immigration Minister in 2006 that the average detention and escorting costs were £1,230 per detainee per week—but it raises serious humanitarian issues.

This can perhaps be explained by the government’s target driven plan to deal with 450,000 unresolved asylum cases within the next five years. Although asylum applications are at a 14-year low, the proportional use of detention has increased seven fold; in March 2008 the Home Office announced a 60 per cent increase in the number of places in detention centres. The risk to detainees could be unprecedented.

Responding to Outsourcing Abuse, on 30 September home secretary Jacqui Smith appointed Dame Nuala O’Loan to independently review the alleged assaults and concerns raised for the first time in the UK. Earlier this year, the Independent Asylum Commission deemed the attitude adopted by officials towards issues concerning asylum and immigration as a “culture of disbelief". Campaigners increasingly believe that it is time this culture came to an end.