Subjectivity and identity in detention: Punishment and society in a global age

2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Bosworth
Keyword(s):  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Foreign National ◽  
Immigration Detention ◽  
Detention Centre ◽  
Global Age

This article draws on ethnographic research that I conducted in five British immigration removal centres from November 2009 to June 2011, and considers the challenges these institutions pose to our understanding of penal power. These centres contain a complex mix of foreign national citizens including former and current asylum seekers, those without visas, visa over-stayers and post-sentence foreign national prisoners. For many non-British offenders, a period of confinement in an immigration detention centre is now, effectively, part of their punishment. What are the implications of this dual confinement and (how) can we understand it within the intellectual framework of punishment and society?

Mental distress and human rights of asylum seekers

2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Jean Campbell ◽  
Emily Jean Steel
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Mental Distress ◽  
World Health ◽  
Mental Wellbeing ◽  
Systemic Review ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Immigration Detention ◽  
Detention Centre ◽  
Content Type

Purpose – This paper studies the experiences of asylum seekers in Australia. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between mental wellbeing, living conditions, and Australia’s detention policies in light of human rights. Design/methodology/approach – Using grounded theory, data were collected via observations, semi-structured interviews, key-informant interviews, and document analysis. Participants included seven asylum seekers and three professionals working with them. Findings – In light of a human rights framework, this paper reports on the mental distress suffered by asylum seekers in detention, the environments of constraint in which they live, and aspects of detention centre policy that contribute to these environments. The findings highlight a discrepancy between asylum seekers’ experiences under immigration detention policy and Australia’s human rights obligations. Research limitations/implications – This research indicates human rights violations for asylum seekers in detention in Australia. This research project involved a small number of participants and recommends systemic review of the policy and practices that affect asylum seekers’ mental health including larger numbers of participants. Consideration is made of alternatives to detention as well as improving detention centre conditions. The World Health Organization’s Quality Rights Tool Kit might provide the basis for a framework to review Australia’s immigration detention system with particular focus on the poor mental wellbeing of asylum seekers in detention. Originality/value – This study links international human rights law and Australian immigration detention policies and practices with daily life experiences of suffering mental distress within environments of constraint and isolation. It identifies asylum seekers as a vulnerable population with respect to human rights and mental wellbeing. Of particular value is the inclusion of asylum seekers themselves in interviews.

scholarly journals DISCOURSE OF REFUGEES OPERATION SCHEME AFTER ISSUANCE OF PRESIDENTIAL DECREE NUMBER 125 OF 2016 ON THE TREATMENT OF FREIGN REFUGEES IN IMMIGRATION PERSPECTIVE

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-84
Author(s):  
M. Alvi Syahrin ◽  
Bangun Widodo Pangestu
Keyword(s):  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Standard Operating Procedure ◽  
Legal Research ◽  
Immigration Detention ◽  
Detention Centre ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Control Scheme ◽  
Standard Operating ◽  
Presidential Decree ◽  
Asylum Seekers And Refugees

As a state of law, Indonesia places legal norms as the fundamental foundation of the state. The issuance of Presidential Regulation No. 125 of 2016 on the Treatment of Foreign Refugees, has provided guidelines for Indonesia to deal with the existence of asylum seekers and refugees. The formulation of the problem studied is how the refugee control scheme after the issuance of Presidential Regulation No. 125 of 2016 in the immigration perspective. The research method uses normative legal research. The monitoring of refugees in Indonesia, which is imposed on the Immigration Detention Centre, has been well implemented. The monitoring scheme at the time it was found, at the shelter, outside the shelter, was dispatched to the destination country, voluntary repatriation, and at the time of deportation did not answer the problems related to the presence and activities of refugees while in Indonesia. Although the operation scheme has been clearly provided in Presidential Regulation No. 125 of 2016, it needs to be refined with technical regulations, such as the Standard Operating Procedure that regulates the mechanism of controlling refugees for all Immigration Detention Centre. Another issue of concern is the issue of funding, officials in charge of refugee control, and the imposition of sanctions if there is negligence in the case of such operation.  

scholarly journals Learning to Detain Asylum Seekers and the Growth of Mass Immigration Detention in the United States

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Smita Ghosh ◽  
Mary Hoopes
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Infectious Diseases ◽  
Cognitive Dissonance ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
The United States ◽  
Critical Component ◽  
Immigration Detention ◽  
Important Shift

Drawing upon an analysis of congressional records and media coverage from 1981 to 1996, this article examines the growth of mass immigration detention. It traces an important shift during this period: while detention began as an ad hoc executive initiative that was received with skepticism by the legislature, Congress was ultimately responsible for entrenching the system over objections from the agency. As we reveal, a critical component of this evolution was a transformation in Congress’s perception of asylum seekers. While lawmakers initially decried their detention, they later branded them as dangerous. Lawmakers began describing asylum seekers as criminals or agents of infectious diseases in order to justify their detention, which then cleared the way for the mass detention of arriving migrants more broadly. Our analysis suggests that they may have emphasized the dangerousness of asylum seekers to resolve the dissonance between their theoretical commitments to asylum and their hesitance to welcome newcomers. In addition to this distinctive form of cognitive dissonance, we discuss a number of other implications of our research, including the ways in which the new penology framework figured into the changing discourse about detaining asylum seekers.

scholarly journals Mental health in immigration detention: A comparison of foreign national ex‐prisoners and other detainees

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 275-287
Author(s):  
Piyal Sen ◽  
Grace Crowley ◽  
Claira Moro ◽  
Karen Slade ◽  
Al Aditya Khan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Foreign National ◽  
Immigration Detention

Home is Where the Heart Abides Migration, return and housing in Dakar, Senegal

2009 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 49-56
Author(s):  
Guilia Sinatti
Keyword(s):  
Home Country ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Architectural Features ◽  
Global Age ◽  
Perceived Importance ◽  
Local Construction ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Depth Interviews

The increased interconnectedness and possibilities for travel and communication that characterise the current, global age have strongly affected scholarly ways of understanding contemporary forms of identification and belonging. Literature on the subject strongly challenges the notion of home as a fixed place, particularly where migration is concerned. The case study of Senegalese migration, however, contrasts this argument. Based upon ethnographic research and in depth interviews with migrants conducted in Senegal and in Italy between 2004 and 2007, this article shows that for many Senegalese the ultimate home still remains strongly identified with the country of origin. Questioned on the issue at stake, Senegalese migrants unanimously express the eventual goal of return to the home-land. The perceived importance of an anchorage in Senegal is expressed even more strikingly than in words, in the practices of migrant investment in housing. Migrants invest massively in the home country, significantly altering the landscape of local cities. This article shows that the intensity and features of construction activities undertaken by migrants in the capital city of Dakar are provoking a veritable process of urban makeover, which is transforming the physiognomy of the built environment. Alongside transforming the landscape of many peripheral neighbourhoods by altering mainstream architectural features of buildings and importing Western styles and taste in local construction practices, migrants are also contributing towards the creation of new symbols of success.

Immigration Detention Reborn, 1981–1982

2018 ◽  
pp. 51-70
Author(s):  
Carl Lindskoog
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
The United States ◽  
Immigration Detention ◽  
Mass Migration

Immigration detention was formally reborn in the United States when the Reagan administration reinstituted a policy of detention in 1981. And at that moment, the new detention policy applied exclusively to Haitians. Chapter 3 documents how and why Haitian asylum seekers were the first targets of the revived detention program; it considers how the Reagan administration’s concerns about surging numbers of asylum seekers and anxiety over mass migration to the United States also influenced its decision to redeploy immigration detention. Finally, this third chapter documents the government’s early efforts to construct its new detention system and the movement that emerged to resist it.

Technologies of control: Asylum seeker and volunteer experiences in Australian immigration detention facilities

2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Peterie
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Distress ◽  
Asylum Seeker ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Immigration Detention ◽  
Volunteer Experiences ◽  
Negative Impacts ◽  
Detention Facilities

This article documents the experiences of volunteer visitors to Australia’s onshore immigration detention facilities, and considers what they reveal about the operation of power within this detention network. While immigration detention systems (including Australia’s) have received considerable academic attention in recent years, few scholars have examined the experiences of volunteers. Further, while the existing scholarship points to the negative impacts of immigration detention on detainees, the question of how these outcomes are produced at the level of daily institutional life has gone largely unanswered. The testimonies presented here provide a valuable window onto daily life in Australia’s onshore immigration detention centres, highlighting the opaque and capricious mechanisms through which they produce emotional distress in both asylum seekers and their supporters. In documenting these mechanisms and their effects, this article shows how ‘deterrence’ is enacted through the small and seemingly innocuous details of institutional life.

scholarly journals “The Only Thing they have to Bargain with is their own Self”: masculinity and protesting immigration detention

2007 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Browning
Keyword(s):  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Immigration Detention

This paper explores questions around masculinity and immigration detention. It suggests that masculinity constitutes a dimension present in both the rationale for incarcerating unauthorised asylum seekers and in practices of resistance against their incarceration. In modern Australia, the enclosed spaces of immigration detention are sites of bitter struggle. Brutality permeates the detention space and all detainees are vulnerable to its permutations, but men are the principal targets of the detention regime and are typically the primary instigators of mass demonstrations. Group protests are a response to the constraining system of incarceration and seek particular resolution. In this masculine space a form of male resistance has publicised the devastation of detention.

Lost at Woomera: Rereading Mainstream and Alternative Media

2003 ◽  
Vol 109 (1) ◽  
pp. 138-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Bishop
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Alternative Media ◽  
Detention Centre ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Online Activism ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Public Demonstration

This paper focuses on aspects of the media engagement with demonstrations at the Woomera Detention Centre during Easter 2002. A broad range of interests and affiliations were represented within the 1000–2000 protestors, several hundred of whom attacked the fences, allowing a number of detainees to escape. In an era of online activism, the Easter 2002 demonstration at Woomera showed the continuing significance of the embodied occupation of public space by protestors. It echoed an upsurge in public demonstration, from Seattle to more recent worldwide marches against war in Iraq. In addition to receiving extensive mainstream media coverage both in Australia and overseas, a whole series of ‘alternative’ forms of media were mobilised around the demonstration. Through a study of some mainstream and alternative media, this paper suggests that casting them as oppositional — one as reactionary towards asylum seekers from Islamic cultures and the other as emancipatory — is too simplistic. While mainstream media are the subject of searching critiques of their representational and agenda-setting power, similar critical evaluations are few for alternative media. It suggests that such a dichotomy has serious consequences for the understanding and operation both of emancipatory struggles and of the media. Giroux (2002) has called for a politics of educated hope, and this paper suggests that critique should be accompanied by an active search for moments of contradiction and possibility.

scholarly journals Mental health morbidity among people subject to immigration detention in the UK: a feasibility study

2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (6) ◽  
pp. 628-637 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Sen ◽  
J. Arugnanaseelan ◽  
E. Connell ◽  
C. Katona ◽  
A. A. Khan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Personality Disorder ◽  
Mental Disorder ◽  
Developmental Disorders ◽  
Psychiatric Morbidity ◽  
Screening Tools ◽  
Psychiatric Research ◽  
Foreign National ◽  
Immigration Detention ◽  
The Uk

Aims.The UK has one of the largest systems of immigration detention in Europe.. Those detained include asylum-seekers and foreign national prisoners, groups with a higher prevalence of mental health vulnerabilities compared with the general population. In light of little published research on the mental health status of detainees in immigration removal centres (IRCs), the primary aim of this study was to explore whether it was feasible to conduct psychiatric research in such a setting. A secondary aim was to compare the mental health of those seeking asylum with the rest of the detainees.Methods.Cross-sectional study with simple random sampling followed by opportunistic sampling. Exclusion criteria included inadequate knowledge of English and European Union nationality. Six validated tools were used to screen for mental health disorders including developmental disorders like Personality Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Intellectual Disability, as well as for needs assessment. These were the MINI v6, SAPAS, AQ-10, ASRS, LDSQ and CANFOR. Demographic data were obtained using a participant demographic sheet. Researchers were trained in the use of the screening battery and inter-rater reliability assessed by joint ratings.Results.A total of 101 subjects were interviewed. Overall response rate was 39%. The most prevalent screened mental disorder was depression (52.5%), followed by personality disorder (34.7%) and post-traumatic stress disorder (20.8%). 21.8% were at moderate to high suicidal risk. 14.9 and 13.9% screened positive for ASD and ADHD, respectively. The greatest unmet needs were in the areas of intimate relationships (76.2%), psychological distress (72.3%) and sexual expression (71.3%). Overall presence of mental disorder was comparable with levels found in prisons. The numbers in each group were too small to carry out any further analysis.Conclusion.It is feasible to undertake a psychiatric morbidity survey in an IRC. Limitations of the study include potential selection bias, use of screening tools, use of single-site study, high refusal rates, the lack of interpreters and lack of women and children in study sample. Future studies should involve the in-reach team to recruit participants and should be run by a steering group consisting of clinicians from the IRC as well as academics.

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