Abstract
The rise in the detention of foreign nationals in England and Wales has been dramatic. In the early 1990s, there were only 250 places for those being detained pending deportation, while there are now more than 10 times as many spaces (Home Office, 2013). This has also been accompanied by a dramatic rise in the imprisonment of foreign nationals. They currently account for over 10,000 of those imprisoned in England and Wales, almost one in eight of the total population (Ministry of Justice, 2013).
Such trends have been the subject of an increasing degree of critical criminological attention. Much of this has been focused at the macro-political level, drawing attention to similar processes taking place across Europe. In England and Wales, foreign nationals are twice as likely as nationals to be imprisoned, while in other European countries this is generally even higher. In Germany, for example, foreign nationals are eight times more likely to be imprisoned, and in Greece, are twelve times more likely (Palidda, 2011a). It has been argued that this development is an expression of social control, involving the identification of a vulnerable group that can be demonized in order to provide stability to a dominant group in uncertain times (see Palidda, 2011b). It has also been argued that this may relate to a deeper sense in which racial power and penal institutions are enmeshed (Bosworth, 2004). While these broader discussions are important for our understanding of penal change, less attention has been paid to the micro processes of detention and the imprisonment of foreign nationals, particularly through ethnographic research. It is well known that such methodology can offer a more intimate and human perspective on the experiences of those in detention, as well as highlighting how power structures are created, maintained and resisted within everyday contexts of control. Alexandra Hall’s book attempts to bridge this gap by offering an insider account of the work of officers in an immigration detention centre.
Researching the occupational culture and practices of those working in places of detention is important for three reasons (Crewe et al., 2008). The first is that these key actors carry out an essential state function that has a human impact on those who are imprisoned; it is important, in other words, to understand the effects of their work on those people detained. Secondly, detention officers are a distinct occupational group who experience particular pressures, stresses and tensions, and so an understanding of the effects of their work upon their own lives and worldview is warranted. Thirdly, studying officers working in secure detention illuminates broader issues of power, order, inequality and resistance as they manifest in contemporary penal settings. Hall’s concern in this book is largely to address the first and last reasons, concerned as she is with officers as ‘proxy sovereigns’ (p. 10) who ‘produce and reproduce the secure detention regime, with ramifications for those who find themselves detained’ (p. 2).
The substantive chapters of the book cast a critical eye across this occupational group. Chapter 2, for instance, describes officers as being engaged in what Hall terms ‘bodywatching’, in which they operate with ‘suspicious, precautionary and vigilant dispositions’ (p. 28) alert to unusual behaviours or deviations from routines. Hall describes groups of detainees who are codified, often by nationality, in order to generalize and classify behaviours, revealing how the routinization of the regime acts to amplify deviance and non-conformity. Chapter 3 considers masculinity as part of the institutional culture, with the dominance of a quasi-military style of interaction and presentation. Within this context, women are problematized as prone to uncontrolled emotions, physical and moral weakness, and are perceived as having a propensity to engage in inappropriate relationships with fellow detainees. In Chapter 4, an attempt is made to illuminate the everyday flow of power between officers and detainees, exploring in particular how power is imposed, resisted and legitimated. This chapter is also concerned with how detainees become constructed as the demonized ‘other’—both as a lawbreaker (whether that is the criminal law or immigration law) and also on the basis of nationality and culture. In the latter, attempts are made to compare detainees adversely with an idealized notion of Englishness. This is followed in Chapter 5 by a discussion of power, discretion and the constraints upon this. The chapter particularly focuses on the diffusion of power through the absence of a formal disciplinary framework for detainees, the perceived interference of interest groups supporting detainees and the opaque nature of decision making by remote immigration caseworkers. The final chapter is concerned with the ethics of detention, exposing how the public face of the institution is used to present a liberal-humanitarian image in order to pacify external observers, while simultaneously serving to produce docile bodies who comply with institutional demands.
The observations made by Hall and her analysis are well made and the interest in immigration detention is to be welcomed. However, there is an important aspect of the organization that appears to be underplayed by the author. Hall informs the reader that the detention centre was previously used as a prison and, at the time of the study, had only been opened for a short period of time. In my view, this is an important yet underplayed part of the story. Hall does not appear to recognize fully that the officers she researched had previously worked in the prison, and had therefore imported a set of cultures, practices and processes. Much of what Hall has noted has been previously described in relation to prison staff. It is crucial to recognize, therefore, that what has been observed is not necessarily the occupational culture of a detention centre but, rather, that of the prison merely transferred into a new institution.
There are occasions when Hall does capture some of the distinctive aspects of detention life for staff, as well as those changes that they themselves have had to adapt to, including the loss of formal disciplinary power, the new importance of national identity, the problems of communication and the enigmatic nature of immigration casework. However, any cohesive or coherent notion of the ‘detention centre’ is missing. As noted earlier, the detention centre is a relatively new construction within penal politics and its role and function remains uncertain. It is an inchoate institution, drawing upon the mentalities and practices of the prison, but without having a clear and distinct identity of its own. As such, many of those working within the detention centre are in a situation of uncertainty and insecurity (Bennett, 2012; Bosworth and Slade, forthcoming).
I also outlined at the outset the importance of studying those people who work in places of detention. Hall focuses predominantly on the effects that staff have on detainees, and the role they play in amplifying existing social inequalities and reproducing regimes of control. What she does not address at any great length is the effects of the detention environment upon the staff themselves. This is important, I think, for two reasons. The first is that detention officers live and experience the effects of detention on a daily, ongoing basis. In this sense, if we are to explore the prevention and amelioration of harm, then these key agents must also be considered. The second reason is that conceptualizing staff as ‘proxy sovereigns’ is an incomplete way of viewing them. They are the subjects of power as well as its holders. They occupy a position in what Primo Levi (1988: 22) described as the ‘grey zone’, being the subjects of their own forms of monitoring, behavioural compliance and responsibilization through managerial structures.
Alexandra Hall has made an important contribution by engaging in a sustained ethnography of immigration detention, an expanding and poorly understood institution. Although I have raised some concerns about the analysis her book offers, such pioneering research inevitably raises as many questions as it perhaps answers. The success of this book is that it makes an attempt to understand the evolution in modes of imprisonment and, for that, Hall deserves praise.