Self-inflicted deaths, suicides, in removal centres are being kept a “state secret” by the Home Office, according to the expert commissioned by the government to carry out a review of the immigration detention.
Former prison ombudsman Stephen Shaw, who has produced two major reports on immigration removal centres (IRCs), told MPs it was “odd and frankly self-defeating” that the department did not make the numbers of detainee deaths public.
Speaking to the Home Affairs Select Committee on Tuesday, Mr Shaw raised concerns about the fact that the Home Office did not conform to the practice followed by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) of publishing data on deaths of immigration detainees.
“I find it frankly odd and self-defeating that the Home Office doesn’t face the normal practice in the MoJ of making a statement when there is an apparently self-inflicted death in detention. I think they should do so routinely,” he said. “These shouldn’t be state secrets. One of the consequences is that you see different figures bandied around. This is all complete nonsense.” He added: “There’s too much secrecy generally – I want to see it opened up. I think it’s outrageous that there should be any question other than that those figures are made routinely available... This is deaths of people in the care of the state and there shouldn’t be any secrecy in that.”
Lucy McKay, policy and communications officer at Inquest, said the Home Office’s public response to deaths of immigration detainees was “one of denial, delay and obfuscation”.
“They do not publish data, only confirm that deaths have occurred if asked, and generally avoid or delay this confirmation,” she continued. “Transparency is an essential part of democratic accountability. It allows the public and civil society organisations to monitor the protection of detainees’ rights. The clandestine culture of the Home Office must change.”
Figures obtained by The Independent in April show more than one person a day needed medical treatment for self-harming in UK detention, with the number of detainees on regular “suicide watch” also on the rise.
The inspectorate of prisons warned a month earlier that the Home Office was holding torture victims with high levels of mental health need in immigration detention in breach of the law. Peter Clarke cited “considerable failings” in safety and respect for detainees and said “insufficient” attention was given to post-traumatic stress and other mental health problems.
Shaw also expressed concerns that large numbers of vulnerable people were being locked up before their mental health needs are assessed.
“The assessment of vulnerability occurs far too often in an IRC healthcare environment and not before the decision to detain the person has been made,” he said. “I’m concerned that we start worrying about the vulnerability after the clang of the gate, and we know relatively little before that.”
Harriet Ballance, acting director of Avid, a membership network which supports volunteer visitors to immigration detainees, told The Independent the government was ”failing” to meet a basic duty of care for the most vulnerable.
“The unprecedented number of deaths in detention in the last two years is a clear indictment of both indefinite detention, which in itself is utterly damaging, and the ongoing detention of vulnerable people,” she added.
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