Former Chief Inspector slates detention centre conditions

The recommendation is partly the result of her recent inspection of Brook House detention centre where the widespread violence and lack of safety caused the prisons inspector to question the role of the UKBA and its priorities. 

 

The former prisons' inspector has been outspoken in recent years about the state of the detention system in general. While she resists labelling every detention centre as being poorly run, conditions such as those found in Brook House are too common to be dismissed as isolated concerns. A sense of the larger picture gained from over half a decade’s experience in this area has prompted her to table this latest idea. 

 

All too often conditions have been found to resemble those of prisons, which of course runs contrary to the avowed principle of affording detainees decent and human conditions before their repatriation.

 

 

This prevalent trend, she believes, is symptomatic of a conflict of duties within the UKBA’s remit.

 

She has expressed particular concern about how this affects the most vulnerable of detainees, namely children. She has continually brought this to the attention of governments and is likely to be taken very seriously given the present government’s stance on child detention. 

 

“While it is true that the conditions and the support services for children in detention have improved, detention of itself is damaging for children" she said.

 

The remedy she advocates is for a separate organisation to assume responsibility for detainee care. This is owing to her view that the overarching aim of the UKBA, namely the removal of failed asylum seekers and enforcing border control, clashes with its efforts to provide good conditions for those it seeks to expel.

 

This observation rings particularly true in light of what some perceive as the culture of scepticism at the UKBA. In recent months Colin Yeo has drawn attention to officials’ unwillingness to believe the accounts of women who claim to have been domestically abused. This is further illustrated by the revelations of Louise Perret in March this year, who talked of the farcical tests that some asylum seekers were subjected to in order to prove their stories.

 

Evidence of such a predisposition must cast doubt on their suitability to be in charge of the detention of asylum seekers.