Category: Immigration detention

The Chief Inspector of Prisons’ annual report, published yesterday, catalogues the series of ongoing failures to manage prisoners safely across the estate. Suicide and self-harm rates remain worryingly high, with some prisons seeing a considerable increase in these numbers. This must be addressed.

The findings from the Independent Monitoring Board’s annual report are a stark reminder of the serious risks to the life of those held in our closed institutions. The report, published today, finds that the ongoing prison capacity crisis and staffing challenges are causing “tremendous strain”, including on the prison service’s ability to safeguard prisoners at risk of suicide and self-harm.

The report into the Brook House inquiry reveals a “toxic” environment in which shocking levels of abuse, humiliation, and disregard for detained persons’ vulnerabilities were not only tolerated, but allowed to thrive.

During the Committee Stage of the Illegal Migration Bill in the House of Lords on 7 June, cross-party Peers raised the Panel’s concerns about the proposed expansion of detention powers under the Bill, and the impact this will have on the Government’s ability to keep people in its care safe.

Following publication of the Illegal Migration Bill, Lynn Emslie, IAPDC Chair, has written to the Rt Hon Suella Braverman KC MP to raise the Panel’s concerns about the impact of the proposals contained within the Bill on the ability of the Home Office to keep people in detention safe.

The IAPDC has written to the Rt Hon Robert Jenrick MP following the death of a man at Manston.

The Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody (IAPDC) has today, 28 October 2022, written to the Rt Hon Robert Jenrick MP, Minister for Immigration, regarding the “drastic deterioration in conditions” at Manston, a migrant processing centre, and the potential associated risk to life they pose.