Report on immigration removal centre shows 'worst conditions ever seen'

Jesuit Refugee Services have expressed grave concern at a new report by inspectors who made an unannounced visit to Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre earlier this year, and found what they described the "worst conditions" they had ever seen.

Much of the accommodation was decrepit, violence and other unacceptable behaviour such as drug use had substantially increased and there had been numerous serious attempts at suicide in the centre.

The Chief Inspector of Prisons, Charlie Taylor was so concerned that he wrote to the then Home Secretary shortly after the inspection setting out the many failures at the centre. He has received no response.

Population pressures in prisons meant far more former prisoners were being held in Harmondsworth alongside those with no criminal conviction. Assaults had doubled since the last inspection and drug-taking, usually rare in IRCs, was now widespread. Inspectors could smell cannabis and saw detainees openly smoking in communal areas without being challenged by staff who largely kept to offices with "do not enter" taped across their doors. Perhaps unsurprisingly, nearly two thirds of those detained in Harmondsworth said they had felt unsafe in the centre.

Adding to this atmosphere, the centre had doubled up cells so they could hold more men and the only exceptions to this were for those at risk of serious harm. After two days, men who refused to share a room were taken to the separation unit by a team dressed in full personal protective equipment and kept there until they agreed to share.

Almost half of those who completed the inspectorate's survey said they were suicidal and the centre held many men with known vulnerabilities, including 20 whom the Home Office had accepted would be likely to suffer harm from ongoing detention. Despite this obvious risk, and numerous serious suicide attempts, the centre had not implemented repeated recommendations from 'near-miss' investigations, including such basic steps as the removal of ligature points. Self-harm prevention work was generally poor: one man, who had been placed on constant watch because he was assessed to be at imminent risk of self-harm, was being watched by no one.

One of the challenges faced by the centre, run by Mitie Care and Custody, was a staffing shortfall and a shambolic retendering process run by the Home Office, which meant that leaders had no idea whether they would still be running the centre in the next few months. These contractual uncertainties had gone on since the previous year and made it all but impossible to recruit permanent senior staff, who might only be in post for a matter of weeks.

Charlie Taylor said: "The level of chaos that we found at Harmondsworth was truly shocking and we left deeply concerned that some of those held there were at imminent risk of harm. Nobody should be detained in an immigration removal centre unless they are going to be removed quickly from the country, yet around 60% of detainees were released from the centre, with only a third deported, which begs the question of why so much taxpayer money was being spent keeping them locked up in the first place."

Jesuit Refugee Services UK's Director Sarah Teather said: "This latest HMIP report shows that people including survivors of torture and trafficking are being locked up in decrepit conditions, in chaotic and unsafe environments, often with little to no access to justice. Suicidal ideation is widespread. Safeguarding is all but absent. Segregation is used to punish detained people.

This is further, compelling proof that immigration detention is dangerous, cruel, and profoundly harmful. It closely echoes what we see on the ground in Harmondsworth, and we know that it destroys lives.

It also mirrors the findings of the Brook House Inquiry Report and JRS UK's research, After Brook House again showed that people continue to be systemically abused and left vulnerable to harm in detention centres across the UK.

This emergency at Harmondsworth IRC grows out of years of policy-makers being deaf to evidence, and continuing blindly down a destructive path. The government must now act fast, at the least to implement the Brook House Inquiry recommendations, and ultimately to end the use of immigration detention."

LINKS

Read the full Inspection Report here: https://hmiprisons.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmipris_reports/harmondsworth-immigration-removal-centre-2/

Diane Taylor's report in today's Guardian: www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/jul/09/conditions-at-uk-immigration-removal-centre-worst-inspectors-have-seen

JRS UK: www.jrsuk.net
Twitter: @JRSUK
Facebook: https://facebook.com/jesuitrefugeeserviceuk