The detention of asylum seekers in the UK
| Author | Elizabeth Stanley,Margaret S. Malloch |
| Published date | 01 January 2005 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1462474505048133 |
| Date | 01 January 2005 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
The detention of
asylum seekers in the
UK
Repr ese nting risk, mana ging t he danger ous
MARGARET S. MALLOCH AND ELIZABETH STANLEY
University of Stirling, UK and Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
Abstract
Media and political representations of asylum seekers and refugees have been infused
with language denoting images of ‘danger’, ‘criminality’ and ‘risk’. Despite attempts to
provide for those seeking asylum in the UK, those in need have frequently been stig-
matized and criminalized. Policies and practices, intended to respond to those fleeing
economic hardship or political persecution, have been guided by such depictions. This
article illustrates the use of detention as a mechanism for purportedly securing the
containment and removal of ‘illegals’. While the use of detention may be seen as an
attempt to deter ‘undeserving’ asylum seekers from seeking sanctuary in the UK, this
article argues that this practice is, in effect, a fundamentally punitive method to assuage
public fears concerning supposed ‘risk’ and potential dangers to ‘security’.
Key Wor ds
asylum seekers •danger • detention •risk
INTRODUCTION
The ‘asylum issue’ is a subject which has attracted considerable media attention and
which has become a major concern for governments throughout the world. While the
plight of individuals desperately seeking safety is acknowledged as a very real matter,
government policy and public attitudes have been focused on the much broader group
of people who arrive in the United Kingdom on a daily basis. The issue of ‘asylum’ has
become enveloped in concerns about economic migrants, illegal immigrants and the
spectre of terrorist activists.
In the UK, as in other countries, attempts to respond to asylum seekers have focused
on the differentiation of the ‘deserving’ from the ‘undeserving’, classifying those eligible
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& SOCIETY
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and New Delhi.
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DOI: 10.1177/1462474505048133
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for asylum protection. This broad issue, of determining which individuals or groups are
eligible for state assistance, is not a new one. Distinguishing between the ‘deserving’
and ‘undeserving’ has been applied to different groups (including prisoners, victims and
welfare claimants) throughout history. In this context, the protection of rights has been
linked to the political management and public understanding of group identities.
In the UK, public concerns have been heightened by media coverage that portrays
those seeking asylum as a problematic, homogenous group. Media coverage of the
numbers of foreign nationals entering the country illegally is juxtaposed with supposi-
tions of the burden ‘they’ will undoubtedly incur on ‘our’ health and welfare services.
Such representations, meted out to the public on a daily basis, suggest that few of those
seeking asylum are ‘genuine’, while the broader influx of ‘claimants’ have the potential
to pose a very real risk to liberal democratic states. This article illustrates the way in
which policy and public responses to asylum seekers are continually underpinned by
distinctions between the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ claimant. Specifically, it examines
the role of detention in the management and containment of asylum seekers, indicat-
ing the legitimation of incarceration within a context of punitive and often contradic-
tory political discourse.
GOVERNING ‘RISKS’, MANAGING ‘DANGER’
Asylum seekers defy calculations of risk as, at first glance, they are ‘unknowable’,
‘ungovernable’ and thereby ‘dangerous’. Travelling to the UK by circuitous and difficult
routes, they often lack documentation. Many do not identify themselves to the author-
ities on arrival. At a time when travel is increasingly monitored (through information
network systems at airports and ports; by CCTV in cities and towns; by in-car tracking)
and identities and individual actions are continually tracked (from the growth in formal
employment, medical, housing and benefit records through to police surveillance at
protests), asylum seekers represent a ‘self-selected’, paperless, rootless and shifting force.
The lack of official information and documentation on asylum seekers makes them a
group confirmed as implicitly dangerous (Pratt, 2000), their unknown attributes and
backgrounds suggest a risk, a liability that has to be secured.
The depiction of asylum seekers in terms of liabilities, a risky group that needs to be
prevented, contained and, preferably, repatriated is one that permeates liberal democ-
racies. It has underpinned the move to introduce and consolidate practices of surveil-
lance, monitoring of applicants and containment across Europe, North American states,
Australia and New Zealand (Joly, Kelly and Nettleton,1997; Hayter, 2000; Greenberg
and Hier, 2001; Pickering and Lambert, 2001; Human Rights Foundation of Aotearoa
New Zealand (HRFANZ) and Refugee Council of New Zealand (RCNZ), 2002).
In this ‘politicised reading of danger’ (Douglas, 1992: 8), risk is something to ‘tame
and bring under control’ (Brown and Pratt, 2000: 2). Attempts to contain the ‘problem’
have led to a succession of legislation and policies aimed at achieving tighter border
security and internal control. This has been the focus of ongoing policies and practices
within the UK. While such legislation will provide a context for this article, its focus
will be specifically targeted on the use of detention as a means of responding to asylum
seekers.1Furthermore, this article will examine the shift towards the use of different
forms of detention to underpin the process of distinguishing between the ‘genuine’ and
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