New Report by JRS UK: Continued abuses in immigration detention

From the cover the the report

Source: JRS UK

The Jesuit Refugee Service UK has published a new report, 'After Brook House: continued abuse in immigration detention'. It reveals that patterns of mistreatment detailed by a high-profile Independent Inquiry into Brook House Immigration Removal Centre near Gatwick Airport eight months ago remain ongoing throughout UK immigration detention centres.

The Brook House Inquiry Report, published in September 2023, found numerous instances of violent abuse against detained people, and routine, profound failures to care for and safeguard them, alongside a "toxic" and "dehumanising" culture. JRS UK has now criticised "clear, and deeply disturbing, parallels between practices and culture revealed by the Brook House Inquiry and recent and ongoing practices and culture across UK immigration detention."

'After Brook House' draws on a workshop and interviews with men and women detained within the last year at various immigration detention centres, and, supported by JRS UK, reflecting on the findings of the Brook House Inquiry Report. 'After Brook House' finds clear parallels between their experiences and the events described in that report.

Key findings of JRS UK's research that show the continuation of abuses highlighted in the Brook House Inquiry Report include:

• Immigration detention feels like prison;
• People are segregated inappropriately;
• There are huge, routine deficiencies in healthcare provision, including failure to provide necessary medicine and staff ignoring medical emergencies;
• It is extraordinarily difficult to access mental health support in detention and being in detention is profoundly harmful to mental health;
• Safeguards for vulnerable people are largely absent and where they exist do not work. Vulnerable people are rotunely kept in detention;
• Force is used inappropriately, and often gratuitously, against detained people;
• There is a staffing culture of abuse and humiliation within detention centres, and in the practices of detaining people and moving detained people;
• Long and indefinite detention is especially harmful.

JRS UK recommends:

• End the use of detention for the purpose of immigration control;
• Introduce a mandatory time limit of no more than 28 days for all those detained under immigration powers;
• The decision to detain must go before a judge;
• Accept and implement the recommendations of the Brook House Inquiry Report;
• Repeal the Illegal Migration Act 2023 and reject the expansion of detention powers within it.

The findings of 'After Brook House' highlight the daily experience of JRS UK's detention outreach team, especially with regards to detention's crushing human impact. Naomi Blackwell, JRS UK Detention Outreach Manager, said: "Working with people held in detention, we see how badly it affects them. Time and again, you watch a person's mental health deteriorate. And often, these are people who have already undergone torture, trafficking, or other serious traumas. Nothing has changed since the events at Brook House came to light. It really needs to change now."

The Illegal Migration Act 2023 and plans to transfer asylum seekers to Rwanda threaten to hugely expand the use of detention, and worsen the problems identified both by the Brook House Inquiry and in this research.

JRS UK will hold a webinar to share the research on Tuesday 14 May at 5.30pm. To read the report, sign up for the webinar, or find out more ways you can take action, see: www.jrsuk.net/after-brook-house-report