Welfare in Detention of Vulnerable Persons
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Review into the Welfare in Detention of Vulnerable Persons A report to the Home Office by Stephen Shaw January 2016 Cm 9186 Review into the Welfare in Detention of Vulnerable Persons A report to the Home Office by Stephen Shaw Presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Home Department by Command of Her Majesty January 2016 Cm 9186 © Crown copyright 2016 This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: [email protected]. Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned. This publication is available at www.gov.uk/government/publications Any enquiries regarding this publication should be sent to us at dsb&[email protected] Print ISBN 9781474126199 Web ISBN 9781474126205 ID 18111501 52532 01/16 Printed on paper containing 75% recycled fibre content minimum Printed in the UK by the Williams Lea Group on behalf of the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 5 FOREWORD 7 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 11 PART 1: INTRODUCTION 17 Terms of referenCe 17 How I went about the review 18 Written evidence 20 Meetings with Home OffiCe offiCials and stakeholders 24 PART 2: THE CURRENT SYSTEM 31 Context 31 Routes into detention 37 The legal framework 38 The poliCy framework 41 PART 3: MY IMPRESSIONS OF THE IMMIGRATION ESTATE 43 Immigration removal Centres 43 Pre-departure aCCommodation 66 Short term holding faCilities 67 Prisons 78 PART 4: VULNERABILITY 81 Vulnerability and its causes 81 Identification of vulnerability 84 Screening, routing and a single point of entry 97 Rule 35 100 PART 5: THE ARTICLE 3 SUB-REVIEW 108 PART 6: REGIMES AND PRACTICES 111 Personal wellbeing and safety 111 Support and advice 127 Day-to-day life 134 Security and searching 140 Segregation 143 Transfers and logistics 147 Redress and oversight 153 PART 7: HEALTHCARE 158 NHS Commissioning 158 Consistency of services and quality of care 160 Induction interviews 161 The demand for healthCare serviCes 163 CritiCisms of healthCare 165 Staffing levels 172 Specialist services 173 PART 8: THE MENTAL HEALTH LITERATURE SURVEY SUB-REVIEW 175 PART 9: MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES 178 Demand for mental health serviCes 179 Care suites 180 Talking therapies 181 A partnership approaCh 182 PART 10: CASEWORKING 183 Detention deCision making 183 Alternatives to detention 188 PART 11. CONCLUSIONS 191 LIST OF RECOMMENDATIONS 193 APPENDICES Appendix 1: Terms of referenCe Appendix 2: Text of letter from Lord Bates to Stephen Shaw, 2 April 2015 Appendix 3: Independent review of welfare in immigration detention: Review of relevant policy, by Ian Cheeseman, Home OffiCe Appendix 4: Assessment of Cases where a breaCh of ArtiCle 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights has been found in respeCt of vulnerable immigration detainees, by Jeremy Johnson QC, 5 Essex Court Appendix 5: The impaCt of immigration detention on mental health: A literature review, by Mary Bosworth, PhD, Professor of Criminology, Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford Appendix 6: Report of all night observation at Yarl’s Wood IRC from 22.30 on 31 MarCh 2015 to 04.30 on 1 April 2015 Appendix 7: List of organisations and individuals who submitted evidence to the Review of welfare in detention of vulnerable people Appendix 8: Meetings with offiCials and stakeholders Appendix 9: Glossary of abbreviations and aCronyms used in the report ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In ConduCting this review, I have been assisted immeasurably by the three colleagues assigned by the Home OffiCe to support me: Ms Debbie Browett MBE, Mr Ian Cheeseman, and Ms Pamela Lloyd. We have worked together as a team in a manner that has been both supportive and collegiate. I am also grateful to Ms Clare CheCksfield, DireCtor, Returns, Immigration EnforCement, who Commissioned the review on behalf of the Home SeCretary, and to all those in the Home OffiCe, the National Offender Management Service (NOMS), NHS England, and the private sector contractors, who responded to my requests for information, or who agreed to meet with me, or who faCilitated my visits aCross the immigration detention estate. I have benefited too from the written submissions of evidence that I received from a wide variety of individuals and interest groups. These were, without exCeption, of an extremely high standard and the fruit of many hours work. My thinking has also been informed by the meetings I held both with past and present detainees – indeed, these meetings were a CruCial Component of the methodology I have followed – and with other stakeholders. In addition, Mr Cheeseman, Professor Mary Bosworth and Mr Jeremy Johnson QC provided specialist sub-reviews that are annexed to my report. These sub- reviews are doCuments of great signifiCanCe in themselves. Notwithstanding the collective approach detailed above, all responsibility for this report – both its Content and judgements, and any errors or omissions – remains mine alone. Stephen Shaw September 2015 5 6 FOREWORD About half-way through my work on this review I Came aCross an essay published nearly thirty years ago ConCerning the rights of refugees. I may usefully quote these lines: “Over reCent years the detention of asylum seekers in Britain has inCreased alarmingly. In early 1987 as many as 200 asylum seekers were detained … This number has deCreased in 1988 to under 50 …”1 In Contrast, the total number in detention today (whether asylum seekers, ex- offenders, or those otherwise deemed without a legal right to stay in the United Kingdom) is now over 3,000, and the number of people detained at one time or another during the year exceeds 30,000. The reasons for this increase (including the degree to whiCh it refleCts changes in the pattern and sCale of international population movements, and/or a change in UK policy) are far beyond the scope of this review. But it is striking that, despite this growth in the use of detention, the places in whiCh immigration detainees are held are so little known to the publiC at large, and the poliCies by whiCh they are run are subjeCt to little informed debate outside a small number of dedicated interest groups and an equally small number of Parliamentarians. I refer in this report to the reCent Court Cases in whiCh the Home OffiCe has been found by the domestic courts to have breaChed ArtiCle 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (whiCh outlaws torture and inhuman or degrading treatment) in respect of the treatment of individual detainees. It is simply inConCeivable that these cases would be so little known if they involved children in care, hospital patients, prisoners, or anyone else equally dependent upon the state. It is regrettable that the Home OffiCe does not do more to enCourage aCademiC and media interest in immigration detention. Indeed, I think its reluctance to do so is counter-productive – encouraging speculative or ill-informed journalism, while inhibiting the healthy oversight that is one of the most effeCtive means of ensuring the needs of those in detention are recognised and of preventing poor practice or abuse from taking hold. It has been argued internationally that immigration detention is “one of the most opaque areas of publiC administration.”2 It would be in everyone’s interests if in this country it were less so. More could be done too to develop a Clearer identity for the immigration removal Centres (IRCs) and an agreed statement of purpose. When I spoke to senior offiCials of the private seCtor ContraCtors, a theme of our Conversation was the need for Home OffiCe poliCy and proCess to refleCt what was aCtually required for the immigration detention estate to do its job rather than trying to transpose prison praCtiCes into a very different environment. Current policies and processes do not always distinguish the role of an IRC from that of a prison. One emblematiC example: rule 42 of the Detention Centre Rules permits temporary 1 Martin Barber and Simon Ripley, ‘Refugees’ Rights’ in Human Rights in the United Kingdom (ed. Paul Sieghart), Pinter Publishers, London and New York, 1988. 2 Monitoring Immigration Detention: Practical Manual, AssoCiation for the Prevention of Torture/UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), 2014, p.21. 7 Confinement (i.e. segregation) of detainees deemed ‘refraCtory’, a word that has been Copied direCtly from the Prison Rules, but one that is not in Common use nor likely to be familiar to those whose first language is not English. The terms of referenCe for this review were broad, and I must acknowledge that in the time available to me I have not Covered every issue in as muCh detail as I would have liked.3 I have, however, thought long and hard about two words in those terms of reference: ‘welfare’ and ‘vulnerability’. So far as ‘welfare’ is conCerned, I have taken the Common sense view that all aspeCts of a detainee’s treatment affeCt his or her welfare to some degree. Thus I have Comments on matters as apparently unConneCted as aCCess to soCial media, Complaints systems, the loCation and size of IRCs, and provision for those with physiCal and mental illnesses. It was also Clear from all my disCussions with detainees that their immigration status, and the faCt, length and unCertain duration of their detention, was the key determinant of their own sense of welfare. I believe the notion of ‘vulnerability’ is best understood as a dynamiC term. The Home OffiCe reCognises through its own guidanCe that partiCular individuals – pregnant women, elderly people, viCtims of torture, among them – have special needs (however inapt that term in the Context of torture and other abuse), and should only be detained in exCeptional CirCumstanCes, and there are international protoCols to this effeCt.