Our work in Dungavel in 2023
In November, we posted a blog looking at our visit statistics up to October 2023. This new blog updates the picture presented there with figures for the whole of 2023.
2023 was the first year since 2019 in which no Covid restrictions were in place, and in which we returned to our regular service at Dungavel of two volunteer-led visits a week and two staff-led drop-in sessions a month. We visited the centre 110 times over the year and saw a total of 215 people, compared to 136 in 2022 and 203 in 2019.
The comparison with 2019 is particularly interesting because for most of that year, the capacity of Dungavel was much higher than it is now (249), but was reduced to 125 towards the end of the year. This was probably in recognition of the fact that in 2019 (and for much of 2018), the number of people detained in the centre was well below its capacity – under 80, and often considerably lower.
The years between 2015 and 2019 saw a period of modest detention reform: detention centres closed, fewer people were detained for shorter periods of time, and following the recommendations of the Shaw Reviews, the UK Government had committed to piloting community-based alternatives to detention. The decreased population at Dungavel reflected these small, positive changes.
Since then, as we know, successive Home Secretaries have introduced increasingly harsh immigration policies. A new detention centre was opened in 2021, the first new centre to open since 2014 and the re-opening of previously closed centres has been announced. The 2022 Nationality and Borders Act introduced a two-tier system of refugee protection, penalising those who arrive in the UK by irregular means. The 2023 Illegal Migration Act, yet to be fully implemented, went even further, effectively abolishing the right to claim asylum for those who arrive by irregular means and allowing for the indefinite detention of those who do.
Our figures for 2023 provide us with the first opportunity to gauge the impact of some of this increasingly hostile environment. In addition to seeing more people in total than in previous years, we were aware throughout the year that the number of people in the centre was frequently much higher than in previous years, often approaching 100 and sometimes exceeding it.
We also saw more people on average at each visit. For many years, the average number of people seen at a visit has been static at 7, although that average has always masked wide variations. In 2023, it rose to 8, indicating an increased demand for our services. The people we visit are frequently bemused, angry and upset by their detention. Most have been in the UK for a number of years, they often have children and other family here and have spent years working and paying taxes. They do not understand why they have been detained and experience it as profoundly unjust. Our visits provide an opportunity to talk about that experience, often with the only people they meet who are not connected with the immigration service.
As usual, and as is to be expected in a centre with just 12 bedspaces for women, the vast majority of the people we visited were men (199, 93 per cent). Of the 16 women we visited, most were seen just once, as their detention in Dungavel was short-lived before being transferred quickly to Derwentside, the centre for women in County Durham. It has recently been announced that Derwentside will be repurposed as a male centre and we will be monitoring the impact of this, as we suspect it may mean that women will be detained for longer periods in Dungavel.
We visited people from 42 countries over the year, but as was clear from the figures to October, some nationalities were far more likely to be detained in Dungavel than others. Just over a fifth of the people we visited were from Albania (46 people), with the other largest groups coming from Romania (16 per cent), Poland (8 per cent), India (6 per cent) and Pakistan (6 per cent).
Two thirds of the people we visited were seen just once or twice, reflecting a high turnover of population in the centre, with some people being swiftly removed (particularly to Albania) and others being moved to detention centres in England. However, 9 per cent of the people we saw received 10 visits or more, and seven people received more than 20 visits.
This reflects the fact that some people are detained for considerable periods of time. We visited people in 2023 whose detention had lasted for more than a year, some of whom were still in Dungavel at the beginning of 2024. 10 per cent of the people we visited (22 people) were in Dungavel for three months or more. Our visitors develop long term supportive relationships with people in these circumstances, and witness their increasing frustration and declining mental health as they cope with long term, indefinite detention.
We began 2024 with a strong visiting team, eager to continue their work and committed to supporting some of the most isolated and stigmatised people in the country. And we were also looking back on a busy 2023 and concerned that 2024 will be even busier, as the impact of the Illegal Migration Act is felt. We are ready for the challenge but dismayed that we have to face it. With our colleagues in the visitor groups across the country, in AVID and in Detention Forum, we will continue to argue for a change in direction, for a supportive rather than hostile environment, and for a system based on engagement with people in the community rather than on detention.
