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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
By Liz Peretz, Campaign to Close Campsfield Trigger warning: self-harm, suicide People held in immigration detention centres are among the most vulnerable people in our society. Many detainees have suffered torture or ill treatment, have significant and chronic [...]
This year, the Unlocking Detention blog is particularly focusing on the impact of detention on an individual’s immediate social circle – their friends and family. This piece is written by "Mishka", of the Freed Voices group (the author’s [...]
There's been lots of engagement with #Unlocked16 this week, as we visited the UK’s largest detention centre. Harmondsworth can hold up to 676 people, all men. Opened as a purpose-built detention centre in 2000, Harmondsworth is situated right [...]
This week Unlocking Detention has been ‘visiting’ Harmondsworth - the largest detention centre in the UK, with a capacity for 661 people, and once the 'spiritual' home of the now abolished Detained Fast Track. On Friday afternoon, Ben [...]
By Silvia Maritati, Advocacy Coordinator at Detention Action. “People detained under the Immigration Act powers are unique among the prison population in that their future is entirely uncertain...The degree of uncertainty which is facing detainees in this position [...]
This week, Unlocking Detention visited Morton Hall in Lincolnshire. Morton Hall opened as an "immigration removal centre" in 2011, having previously been other kinds of prison for men, women and youth since 1958. There are 392 bed spaces [...]
As told by 'K'. Footnotes by Ciara Bottomley of Detention Action. The first time I was detained was in 2010. (See below: 1) I was in Harmondsworth then too. The centre was the same then as it is now. [...]