What do the latest figures tell us about detention?

SDV director, Kate Alexander, takes her regular look at the quarterly detention statistics

The latest immigration statistics were out yesterday, covering the year to 31 December 2023. As usual, the focus of the press is on the extent to which the figures reveal the UK government’s progress (or otherwise) on its pledges to clear the asylum backlog and ‘stop the boats’.

But they also allow us to look at what is happening in detention and to compare the overall picture across the UK, with our own experience of 2023.

People in detention

The most striking news revealed by the statistics is that the number of people in detention at the end of 2023 was, at 1,782, 54% higher than at the same time in 2022. There were more people detained at the end of 2023 than at the end of 2019 (1,637), the last year before the pandemic, which saw a marked reduction in detention.  

In Dungavel, the increase was even more marked. Eighty-seven people were detained there at the end of last year, more than double the figures at the end of 2022 (38) and the end of 2019 (42).

This comes as little surprise to SDV. Over the course of 2023, we were aware of more and more people being detained there, and more than we had seen for many years. As we reported in our earlier blog, the number of people in the centre was often over 100 or close to it. We have since been told by staff at the centre that its capacity is set to rise from its current 125, although the extent and timing of the expansion remains unclear. Until late 2019, the capacity of the centre was 249.

At the end of last year we were visiting people who had been detained for over a year. It seemed that detention was lengthening, particularly because many people we visit are granted bail in principle, but remain in detention for want of appropriate accommodation.

We had hoped that the release of yesterday’s figures would provide us with data that would allow us to compare our experience in Dungavel with the picture across the country. It is very disappointing, therefore, that the data on how long people in detention have been detained for has not been updated since quarter 3 of 2022. This also means that there has been no update to the listing of the longest serving people in immigration detention since the end of September 2022. However, we can say from the latest figures that the percentage of people leaving detention after being detained for over six months increased by 29% in 2023, suggesting that the average length of detention is on the rise. We hope that the Home Office will resume updating the information for people in detention in its next statistical release.

People entering detention

The sharp rise in the number of people in detention is perhaps surprising in the context of other trends revealed in yesterday’s statistics. The number of people entering detention throughout 2023 was 15,864, 24% fewer than in 2022. However, it is important to remember that in 2023 people arriving in the UK on small boats from the channel were rarely taken to detention centres for processing. Instead they were taken to Manston, which despite being classified as a residential holding room and able to detain people for four days, is not included in the detention statistics published yesterday.

Again, the picture in Dungavel differs from the national picture with 31% more people entering detention in Dungavel in 2023 than in 2022 (459 people). This figure does not give the true picture of how many people passed through Dungavel over the course of the year as it does not include people who were moved to Dungavel from other parts of the detention estate. In 2022, for example, 351 people entered detention in Dungavel, but the centre’s IMB report for that year records at least 598 arrivals in the centre (70% more).

People leaving detention

The data on people leaving detention has also been affected by the exclusion of small boat arrivals, with the number of people leaving detention in 2023 falling by 27% to 15,354. But as usual, the figures show that detention remains ineffective at achieving its stated purpose of removing people from the country. In 2023, two thirds of the people leaving detention were released back into the community. This is down from 80% in 2022, a difference largely explained by the removal of small boat arrivals (who typically are released having registered an asylum claim) from the figures.

Looking at the figures over the longer term shows that the proportion of people released into the community was higher in 2023 in any year in the last 14 years, with the exception of those years affected by the pandemic (2020-2022).

The UK government’s determination to continue to detain more and more people is all the more extraordinary in the light of the positive results of its own pilot community based alternatives to detention.

There is a compassionate, practical alternative to detention. It’s time to implement it.