Tales of a Flow Stayed By Nothing: Menstruation in Immigration Detention

When Fauziya Kassindja landed at New York’s JFK airport in 1994, she was seventeen, seeking asylum, and fleeing the brutal practice of female genital mutilation. She was also menstruating. Hours after her arrival, Fauziya was strip searched, forced to stand before a female officer “completely naked, soiled pad exposed, shamed beyond words.” She was then transferred to an off-site detention facility where she was strip- searched again. When Fauziya asked where she should place her soiled pad, the female guard responded: “I don’t know. Why don’t you eat it?” When Fauziya asked for a new pad, she was told she could ask for one the next morning. She was given absolutely nothing to stay her flow—not even toilet paper or paper towels. This was the beginning of Fauziya’s experience with immigration detention. She would remain there for sixteen months.

Biological Risk in Italian Prisons: From the COVID-19 Management to the Development of a Standardized Model for Emergency Response

Within the confinements of critical infrastructures, the COVID-19 pandemic is posing a series of challenges to Health Management. In the spotlight of highly contagious and quick spreading diseases within such enclosed facilities, whether it be a detention facility or otherwise, the health and safety of those living within its internment is paramount. This paper aims to highlight the specific challenges and the possible solutions to counteract this problem, starting from the lessons learnt from the Italian prison system case study. Following the general description of the available resources within the Italian prisons, the study aimed at specifically describing the first counteracting measures deployed by the Italian prison authorities during the first phase of the COVID-19 outbreak (February–July 2020). The aim was to propose an integrated plan capable of responding to a biological threat within the prisons. In particular, the study describes the actions and technical features that, in accordance with national and international legal frameworks and the relevant organisational bodies that run the Italian Prison Service, had been adopted in managing, right from the start, the COVID-19 pandemic until Summer 2020. Available information and data showed the ability of the prison administration to comply almost completely with WHO’s technical and human rights recommendations and also, in successfully handling prison emergencies both in terms of the sick and the deceased in line with the epidemiological framework of the general population. In addition, the paper proposes a draft of guidelines that should involve the National Health Service and the Prison Service that are aimed at supporting the local prison facilities with drawing up their own biological incident contingency plans. An approved, legal, standardised plan could increase the awareness of prison managers. It could even increase their self-confidence, in particular, with regard to cases of dispute and their ability to respond to them. In fact, it is valuable and forward-thinking to be able to demonstrate that every endeavour has been taken and that ‘certified’ best practices have been put in place in accordance with the national standards.

Time and time again: the reincarnations of coerced sterilisation

The recently reported cases of coerced sterilisation of women at a privately operated immigration detention facility in the USA are egregious in their disregard for human dignity and professional ethics, but sadly not surprising. These abuses represent a continuation of efforts to control the reproductive capacity of women, fueled by racist and xenophobic motives. Physicians helped create and legitimise the pseudoscientific framework for the eugenics movement, which would implement forceful sterilisation as its tool of choice to eliminate undesirable traits that were thought to be biologically inherited and predominant among racial and ethnic minorities. Although state-endorsed forcible sterilisation programs have ended, incarcerated women have remained particularly vulnerable to sterilisation abuse. The intersectional vulnerabilities of racism, xenophobia and carcerality must be addressed to prevent such abuses from recurring.

Rules for serving administrative arrest: analysis of proposals to modern legislation

The analysis of the legislation on the application of administrative arrest was carried out. It is established that the position of the legislator comes down to the fact that administrative arrest is the most severe measure of administrative penalty, which is applied in exceptional cases. Appointed only by a court decision (judge) if, in the circumstances of the case, taking into account the identity of the offender, the judge concludes that the application of other types of penalties will be insufficient. The uniqueness of administrative arrest is manifested in the fact that it is established for committing administrative offenses with a special anti-social orientation. The statistics of application of administrative arrest by types of administrative offenses and also number of persons on whom the given penalty is imposed on regions of Ukraine are resulted. It is emphasized that in practice administrative arrest as a type of penalty is used very rarely, in some cases its application is complicated by the procedure of its imposition. Attention is focused on certain provisions of the Draft Law “On the rules of administrative arrest” on the introduction of the principles of administrative arrest; features of the legal status of arrested persons; the procedure for placing a person in a temporary detention facility; placement of persons subject to administrative arrest; rights and responsibilities of arrested persons. The expediency of amendments to the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offenses is analyzed. In particular, parts two of Article 32 (Administrative arrest), parts one of Article 294 (Entry into force of a judge’s decision on an administrative offense and revision of the decision), Article 326 (Execution of a decision on administrative arrest and detention on guard duty). As well as additions to the Code by Article’s 326–1 (Petition for the imposition of the pretext and its consideration), 326–2 (Execution of the decision on the exercise of the pretext) and 328–1 (Petition for suspension of the term of administrative arrest and its consideration). The author of the article proposes to amend paragraph 2 of Article 6 of the Draft Law “On the Rules of Administrative Arrest”. Thus, adhere to the principle of non-discrimination enshrined in art. 3 of the draft law. According to the author, it would be logical, if there is an established procedure, to establish liability for violation of the rules and conditions of administrative arrest in the form of a separate provision to the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offenses. The general conclusion is that the adoption of the Laws “On Rules of Administrative Arrest” and “On Amendments to the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offenses in connection with the adoption of the Law of Ukraine “On Rules of Administrative Arrest”” will improve the legal regulation of application and administrative arrest, as a type of administrative penalty, to address a number of issues that exist in this area, which will ultimately contribute to the rule of law and respect for human rights in the application of the penalty.

“This Ain’t My School!” Criminality, Control, and Contradictions in Institutional Responses to School Truancy

While previous research has explored the causes and consequences of school truancy, few studies have considered the meanings of institutional responses. This paper offers an ethnographic analysis of a pilot program promoted as a “progressive” form of truancy intervention. Midvale Truancy Center claimed to focus on education, rather than punishment. In practice, however, the crime control tactics used to capture, isolate, and discipline truants often overshadowed the Center’s educational objectives, locating the Center in a liminal space between school and detention facility. The Center’s competing goals—revenue creation, truancy deterrence, and organizational survival—resulted in rehabilitation being pushed aside in favor of normalization and behavioral control. These findings illustrate a recent larger cultural turn toward control and punishment (Garland 2001), and the encroachment of crime control tactics into the civil sphere.

Applications of teledentistry in a French inmate population: A one-year observational study

Teledentistry oral examination protocol was evaluated for one year at the Villeneuve-lès-Maguelone Correctional Facility. The aim of the study was to simplify the obligatory dental consultation protocol at the entrance visit for new detainees. 1051 detainees were enrolled and 651 of them (58.9%) accepted an oral examination by teledentistry throughout the entire year of 2018. Only 1 inmate did not need treatment and 88.06% of those who have been examined had at least one untreated cavitated carious lesion. Forty-four percent of people who received a teledentistry check-up were referred to a dentist with a dental emergency. The use of teledentistry at the entry visit in a detention facility may facilitate the oral health screening without wasting the dentist’s time, and may allow an optimization of the inmate’s oral healthcare.

Japanese Peruvian Enemy Aliens during World War II

Seiichi Higashide was not an agent of the Japanese emperor or a pro-Axis immigrant, and yet he and more than 1,800 other Japanese Peruvians got caught up in a wave of anti-Japanese hysteria during World War II that led to their kidnapping, forced migration, and incarceration in hastily erected camps in Texas and New Mexico. Higashide and his family were detained as “illegal aliens” in an Immigration and Naturalization Service detention facility in Texas alongside thousands of other foreigners in other camps spread across the Southwest. After the war, Higashide and his family worked at Seabrook Farms, a food processing complex in New Jersey, which was essentially a prison work camp. In the 1950s, the Higashides became US citizens, but the trauma of detention and racism remains with the family. The Higashides’ story reveals the intersection between US empire, national security, and immigrant detention.