Is there an alternative to locking up migrants in the UK?
If
detention is a tool of war on irregular migration, then the damage on both
sides is severe. But this war is not inevitable. There is a significant area of potential common interest
in a fair system that works primarily by consent
Immigration
detention is crudely effective. If the
priority is to control migrants, it works - virtually no-one escapes from
British detention centres these days. More importantly it works in symbolising, in reinforced concrete and
razor wire, the government’s determination to enforce border security. For these reasons, its expansion in the UK
has been inexorable: a
record 28,909 migrants were detained in
2012, up 7% on last year.
Colnbrook Immigration Removal Centre
However,
detention is far less successful at the complex business of actually m
anaging
migration. It is hardly a solution to
immigration control, as detention spaces will always amount to a tiny fraction
of the numbers of irregular migrants. It
is also expensive and wasteful: recent research has found that £75 million per
year is wasted on the unnecessary long-term detention of migrants who are
ultimately released.
It is
well-established how harmful detention is for migrants: in the last 18 months
alone, for example, the Home Office has four times been found by the High Court
to have committed
inhuman or degrading treatment of mentally ill migrants in
detention. Recognising the damage done
by detention to children, the Government introduced a new
Family Returns Process in 2011 to minimise the
detention of children, without acknowledging that any of the same logic applies
to adults.
If
detention is a tool of war on irregular migration, then the damage on both
sides is severe. But is this war
interminable and inevitable? Are the
interests of irregular migrants always diametrically opposed to those of
governments? Are there alternatives to
brute enforcement?
What
are ‘alternatives to detention’?
The
notion of ‘alternatives to detention’ is gathering momentum around the world in
a wide range of contexts. The UN Refugee
Agency,
UNHCR,
has chosen it as one of its key campaign focuses for 2013. The
International
Detention Coalition
has analysed and promoted innovative projects around the world that
systematically reduce the use of detention, by managing and supporting migrants
in the community. A growing body of
ideas and experiences undermines the logic of detention and enforcement as
presuppositions of immigration control. Could it open up possibilities of radically refiguring the management of
immigration to meet the needs of governments and migrants themselves?
The idea
of alternatives to detention is slippery, being many things to many
people. In the UK, it has amounted to a
couple of failed pilots, which have demonstrated conclusively that little is
achieved by moving refused migrant families to different (unlocked)
accommodation and telling them to go home. The
Millbank and Glasgow pilots appeared to
cause unnecessary distress to families whilst failing to meet the government’s
objectives. For once, all sides were in
agreement that they were failures.
But
elsewhere, very different projects have had opposite results by testing out
principles associated with ‘case management’. This approach was first developed in Sweden in the 1990s but has become
the object of international attention since 2006 when the hitherto hard-line
Australian government used it to move away from mandatory indefinite detention
of all irregular migrants. It involves
releasing migrants to community-based support, including legal advice, welfare
support, housing, and time and space for them to consider all options for their
future. It is the polar opposite of the
British policy of detention and destitution for refused asylum-seekers. The
results have been encouraging for all
sides: many migrants have received visas to remain, but the majority who were
refused have departed independently.
Such
initiatives are proliferating. In the
last few years, Belgium has ended the detention of families by housing them in
‘
returns houses’, with on-site ‘coaches’ who
address welfare needs and investigate and discuss all options, including
returns options.
Hong Kong has begun releasing vulnerable
migrants, including torture survivors and asylum-seekers, to case management
from a state-funded NGO. In the US, the
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee
Service is
coordinating a nationwide project that gets migrants released into the support
of local faith and community networks.
Nothing
as imaginative has developed in the UK. Discussion of alternatives has largely been stymied by those dismal UKBA
pilots, which seem to have turned both government and civil society off the
whole concept. It is clear that models
from abroad cannot simply be transposed to the UK. None are perfect; all bring considerable
risks. However, given the UK’s current
extensive and expanding use of detention, the question must be asked: is there
any alternative to exploring alternatives?
What
alternatives to detention exist in the UK?
In
addition to those pilots formally styled as ‘alternatives to detention’,
the UK
operates a variety of processes that amount to forms of alternatives.
These include release on bail or temporary
admission, often to a designated address, with requirements to report
regularly
to a police station or immigration office. These alternatives hardly
amount to solutions for migrants themselves. Research into bail hearings
has repeatedly
found that decisions are often arbitrary and based on no evidence. And
release itself - to temporary
accommodation, a supermarket card to keep starvation at bay, and the
ever-present prospect of a return to detention - amounts to
no kind of life for the individuals ‘lucky’
enough to get it.
More
fundamentally, these alternatives stay within the control and
enforcement model
that culminates in detention. They
merely allow for modulation of the degree of coercion between different
individuals. They can help individuals,
but not facilitate a systemic shift away from detention - when someone
is
bailed, another migrant is detained to take his or her place. They
amount to lighter touch enforcement,
compulsions that stop short of detention. But they still assume that
some, lesser, coercion is necessary. As a result, they are generally
additions to
detention, allowing coercion of more people, without reducing detention.
If
not detention, then what?
If we
are to cure this addiction to detention, we need to undermine the core
assumptions that underlie it. We need
evidence that non-coercive approaches can effectively meet government
objectives. This requires addressing the
grounds on which detention is justified. But it also means reframing the question so that the question of
compliance with immigration control is asked alongside that of the needs and
perspectives of migrants themselves. We
need be able to answer the question - if not detention, then what?
The
government’s main justifications for detention, which alternatives must address,
are to prevent absconding and/or reoffending; and to ensure returns of migrants
who are finally refused leave to remain in the UK. Detention certainly prevents any possibility
of absconding, but it is by no means clear that migrants abscond
otherwise. There is a lack of evidence
on absconding rates of migrants released from detention, although
limited government statistics and independent research have
suggested that the rate is very low.
Bail for Immigration Detainees has recently demonstrated that
both UKBA and the courts persistently justify refusals of release by invoking
risks of absconding or reoffending, on the basis of flawed and inadequate risk
assessments. The lack of evidential
basis for this risk-averse mindset is clear. But how to change it?
Likewise,
there are no statistics on reoffending rates of foreign ex-offenders. Logic suggests that they will be lower for
migrants who are released at the end of their sentence and receive probation
supervision, alongside community support, than for those released after
long-term detention, without supervision and support because their licence has
expired. But, again, the evidence is
lacking.
Continue reading for at least as much text here:
http://opendemocracy.net/5050/jerome-phelps/is-there-alternative-to-locking-up-migrants-in-uk
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