Prisons inspector deems UKBA unfit to run detention centres

The widespread violence and lack of safety discovered at Brooke House has caused the prisons inspector to question the role of the UKBA and its priorities. 

 

Dame Ann has been outspoken in recent years about the state of the detention system in general. Whilst she resists labelling every detention centre as being poorly run, 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 runs contrary to the avowed principle of affording detainees decent and human conditions before their repatriation.

 

In a recent interview with The Independent, Dame Ann said: "Immigration detention should not to be the same as prison. When we are looking at prison, the role of the Prison Service is to try to hold people safely in detention – that is not the core role of the UK Border Agency."

 

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

 

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 a culture of scepticism at the UKBA. In the past months blogger and immigration barrister Colin Yeo has drawn attention to the UKBA’s unwillingness to believe the accounts of women who claim to have been domestically abused. 

 

This culture is further illustrated by the revelations earlier this year of Louise Perret, who talked of the farcical tests which some asylum seekers were subjected to in order to prove their stories authentic.