ASYLUM SEEKERS OUT OF PRISON

The Prison Reform Trust welcomes the Home Secretary’s commitment to remove all asylum seekers from unadapted  prison accommodation within four months. In his complete review of the asylum system he should consider dispensing with the use of detention altogether.

PRT is currently engaged in a study of the conditions for, and treatment of, asylum seekers in prison and other custodial settings.  Interviews with over 50 asylum seekers in custody and meetings with groups and officials, have revealed overwhelming levels of distress. 

The experience of detention itself is painful, regardless of whether in a prison or a detention centre.  One asylum seeker interviewed by PRT in prison said:

“If I did a crime, I’d accept this place.  But I’m not accused of a crime.  There’s 23 hour lock up.  I feel like an animal.  In the cell I feel like a dead man, like I’ve been destroyed.”

Key recommendations from the interim findings include

• The detention of asylum seekers should be avoided at all costs.  As stated by the government, detention should only be used at the end of the asylum process, prior to removal, and where there is a definite (not assumed) risk of absconding.

• Take all asylum seekers out of prison accommodation by an agreed date with no extensions to that date.

• Local prisons should never be used for the detention of asylum seekers who have committed no crime, and have not been charged with or convicted of any crime.

• Any decision to detain, in accordance with international human rights obligations, should be subject to proper and independent judicial oversight.

• The Bail provisions of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 should  be implemented as soon as possible.

• Detention centre rules should apply in any setting where asylum seekers are currently held.

Speaking today, Juliet Lyon, the director of the Prison Reform Trust.

“For a so-called civilized country, in our treatment of asylum seekers, we have behaved in a profoundly uncivilized way.  There has been no justice or fairness in imprisoning people without trial, or in holding people under restrictive remand conditions when they are not in fact on remand.  The practice of imprisoning asylum seekers places an unacceptable strain on a public service already stretched to breaking point by prison overcrowding.”