Reflections on an inspection

In our latest blog, SDV director, Kate Alexander considers HMIP’s Dungavel inspection report

The publication of an inspection report for a detention centre is always an interesting moment for anyone involved in supporting people in immigration detention. It’s one of the few opportunities we have to look beyond the visit room to see what happens behind locked doors.

The report on Dungavel’s recent inspection, published this week, tells us that Dungavel performed well against the tests of a healthy establishment inspectors use to structure their assessment. This is not a surprise. Dungavel receives consistently good inspections in comparison with other centres.

But in a report that is generally positive – phrases like ‘marked improvement’, ‘culture of care’ ‘relaxed and calm environment’ pepper its pages – I am struck by how the damage caused by detention is still strikingly apparent.

And this is not just in the ‘areas of concern’ that inspectors highlight as ‘areas of significant weakness’ that need to be addressed by a change in practice or a redirection of resources. Throughout the report we learn of the stresses, indignities and harms of life in detention.

And while it is a relief to learn that inspectors did not find Dungavel to be as unsafe and horrifying as they found Harmondsworth at a recent inspection, I find it impossible to read the report and conclude that it is ever safe and just to detain people indefinitely.

I’d urge you to read the report - it’s quite short and accessibly written - but here are the issues  that struck me most forcibly.

Experience of women

The report notes as a priority concern the inequitable treatment of women in Dungavel. Of most concern to the inspectors is the fact that women are escorted round the centre at all times. This was something they raised four years ago at their last inspection, but the practice remains in place, as we know from our weekly visits to the centre.

Women told inspectors that they felt uncomfortable leaving the female unit and that they were subject to inappropriate remarks from male residents. Men who presented a risk to women were still sometimes detained at Dungavel, and inspectors found that management did not give sufficient priority to women’s safety. Further, none of the staff who worked on the female unit had been specifically trained to work with women, or on trauma.

But women’s experience was markedly inferior to men’s in more routine ways. Women had less access to welfare and home office staff than their male counterparts. They had only one hour a day allocated at the gym, compared to five for men, and they had no access to outside fitness activities, which were available to men. Unlike men, women have no access to hairdressing services and there was limited access to women’s clothing.

For as long as I can remember, Dungavel inspection reports have highlighted the experience of women as particularly difficult. If anything, their situation is now worse.  

Vulnerable adults

Another priority concern for inspectors was failings in the safeguarding of vulnerable adults. The report details weaknesses in both Home Office and detention centre systems for communicating and responding to serious vulnerabilities that had been identified in people in detention.

Examples such as the Home Office taking over two months to respond to a rule 35 report that resulted in someone being assessed as at level 3 (the highest level of risk), and the failure to recognise the pain and suffering caused by torture show the seriousness of these concerns.

Mental health impacts

The dreadful mental health impacts of detention are obvious throughout the report, which notes that the need for mental health support had increased sharply since the last inspection.

In a survey, 68 per cent of people detained in Dungavel told inspectors that they felt depressed and 21 per cent said they had felt suicidal. In the six months prior to the inspection, 36 people had been put on constant supervision because they were considered to be at serious risk. Seven people were put in ‘anti-ligature clothing’ to prevent self-harm and inspectors were concerned that staff used disproportionate force to do this.  

These findings are shocking to me, yet it is clear from the report that inspectors found Dungavel to perform better on these issues than other detention centres.

Long term detention

We are frequently told that detention is to effect removal or deportation and should be short, but the report confirms that detention can be very prolonged indeed. Inspectors found that one man had been detained for 314 days and one woman for 152 days.

Home Office failings, familiar to us as visitors, are highlighted by inspectors as contributing to prolonged detention. These include poor case progression, delays in providing release accommodation and failure to consider whether detention is justified when there’s no realistic prospect of deportation. Inspectors also note that people remain in detention despite being bailed for want of appropriate accommodation, and yet some people are released into homelessness.

Inspectors found that only a few people were removed directly from Dungavel, with many being moved to other detention centres and 41 per cent being released back into the community. This confirms what we already know about the ineffectiveness of detention at meeting its policy aims. Hundreds of people are detained in Dungavel every year, only to be released again.

Increasing detentions from the community

For a number of years, we have been told that Dungavel is primarily used to detain people who have been moved there from prison. The latest Independent Monitoring Board report notes that the proportion arrivals falling in to that category every month in 2024 was over 50 per cent.

Our impression as visitors is that this has been changing recently and that more people are being detained in Dungavel from community settings.

This is confirmed by the inspection report which tells us that in the six months leading up to the inspection, just 37 per cent of the 796 people arriving at the centre were ex foreign national offenders.

This suggests that in future SDV will increasingly be taking referrals from partner organisations supporting people living in the community, and from family members, as the effects of the UK Government’s increased focus on immigration enforcement are felt more keenly.

Other concerns

Previous inspections have noted that a high proportion of people arriving at Dungavel do so in the middle of the night. This report shows that this still happens in 60 per cent of cases.

Travelling and arriving at night is stressful and disorienting and limits the effectiveness of any induction procedures.

Furthermore, people being taken to outside appointments for medical treatment were now handcuffed in almost all cases due to a change in policy by the Home Office. Previously, individual risk assessments meant that handcuffs were not used in the majority of cases.

It is shocking that people are to be treated this way, just for the convenience of the Home Office.

And finally, the report also reveals that that capacity of Dungavel is set to increase to 200 (from 150). This is something that has been hinted to us by staff but never confirmed. No timescale is given for this change, but I find it extraordinary that it is being implemented in the face of what we know about the harms of detention, its ineffectiveness, and the availability of community based alternatives.