“A prison in all but name”
Nine months on from the death of Amir Siman Tov in Colnbrook IRC, Michael Goldin reflects on the man he knew. Michael is an alumni of the René Cassin Fellowship Programme who previously worked for the Joint Council [...]
Week 7: #Unlocked16 visits Yarl’s Wood
Week 7 of Unlocking Detention saw us virtually visit Yarl's Wood detention centre, perhaps the best known of all the UK's sites of detention. Opened in 2001 at a cost of £100 million, with an original capacity of [...]
Colnbrook, by post
This year, the theme of Unlocking Detention is ‘friends and families’ – we’re specifically focusing on the often unreported, or buried, ‘ripple effect’ of indefinite detention and the way this experience can have tragic consequences beyond the individual detained. [...]
Q&A with Mayalex, currently detained in Yarl’s Wood
This week Unlocking Detention has been ‘visiting’ Yarl's Wood detention centre - perhaps the best known of all the UK's sites of detention, and which will once again be the site of protest on 3 December. Earlier this [...]
When I sing, I sing for them. When I speak, I speak of them. When I shout, I am shouting about them.
By Jess Anslow, Coordinator of Yarl’s Wood Befrienders. Visiting women who are being indefinitely detained in Yarl’s Wood IRC is challenging. It is challenging because you witness injustice. Injustice coming from a country that is known and admired across [...]
Julio y amigos: The impact of detention on the Latin American community in the UK
This year, the theme of Unlocking Detention is ‘friends and families’ and we're focusing on the often unreported 'ripple effect' of indefinite detention and the way this experience can have tragic consequences beyond the individual detained. In this special [...]
Boundary Making and the Broad Ripples of Immigration Enforcement
About the Author: Melanie Griffiths is a former COMPAS DPhil student and is currently an ESRC Future Research Leaders Fellow and Senior Research Associate at the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies, University of Bristol. She is [...]
Week 6: #Unlocked16 visits Campsfield House
This week, Unlocking Detention shone a spotlight on Campsfield House detention centre in Kidlington, a village 7 miles from Oxford. Up to 282 men are locked up there. Campsfield House was originally a young offender’s institution and became an immigration [...]
Live Q&A with Christopher and Jose, both detained in Campsfield
This week Unlocking Detention has been ‘visiting’ Campsfield detention centre, run by Mitie, the largest single private provider of detention services to the Home Office. (In a first for our regular live Q&As) on Friday afternoon, Ben from Detention [...]
Stateless, unreturnable and detained in the UK
By Jan Brulc, head of communications for the European Network on Statelessness. This article was originally published as part of Unlocking Detention on the Justice Gap website. Peter is in his late fifties. He came to the UK [...]