The Politics of Pain in Immigration Detention1
| Author | Mary Bosworth |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14624745211048811 |
| Published date | 01 April 2023 |
| Date | 01 April 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
The Politics of Pain in
Immigration Detention
1
Mary Bosworth
University of Oxford, UK
Monash University, Australia
Abstract
In this paper I draw on qualitative material from the first complete data set of the
‘Measure of the Quality of Life in Detention’(MQLD) survey in the UK to reflect on its
implication for understanding and challenging these sites. While similarities between
immigration detention centres and prisons make it tempting to place the testimonies
from people in detention within the framework of the ‘pains of imprisonment’, I propose
an alternative reading of these first-hand accounts. Rather than approaching them as
sociological statements of suffering, caused by the loss of liberty, I interpret them as pol-
itical statements which, in turn, demand a political response. Immigration removal cen-
tres (IRCs), these people assert, are fundamentally at odds with key values of a liberal
democracy. Those detained within them are not considered to be equal members of
a shared community of value; rather, their incarceration marks them out symbolically
and, quite practically, as outsiders to these ideas. The pain people describe illuminates
the need for a new politics of detention.
Keywords
immigration detention, pains of imprisonment, distress, politics, liberal democracy
Introduction
As far as I am concerned the centre should be shut down, or change the policy in which the
system is managed. […] since I have been here my state of mind keeps deteriorating mentally
I am losing my bearing, psychological am not the same no more. It’s a system designed to
torture and break people down both physically, mentally, emotionally and psychologically.
(Abayomi,
2
BH 55, no nationality given)
Corresponding author:
Mary Bosworth, University of Oxford, UK; Monash University, Australia.
Email: mary.bosworth@crim.ox.ac.uk
Article
Punishment & Society
2023, Vol. 25(2) 307–323
© The Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/14624745211048811
journals.sagepub.com/home/pun
In this paper, I draw on material from the Measure of the Quality of Life in Detention
(MQLD) survey that was administered from July to September 2019 across all the UK
immigration removal centres (IRCs) to explore how women and men cope with their
incarceration and some of the causes of their distress. Many of the problems survey
respondents raise are familiar; in response to closed and open-ended questions people
describe substandard food, poor medical care, a lack of meaningful activities, and low
levels of trust in fellow detainees or staff. In criminological terms, we would normally
conceive these kinds of matters as the ‘pains of detention’. However, as I will argue,
there are some important reasons to be wary of adopting this terminology, not least
because of the way it maintains scholarly focus on the interiority of sites of confinement
and on the specific individual stories, rather than on their relationship to and position
within a wider network of social relations, politics, and the law. Instead, I suggest, differ-
ent, and more radical, lines of inquiry and action open if we understand pain in political
terms (Barker, 2007).
The suffering people report does not spring solely from the deprivations of life
behind bars, nor can the problems they raise be resolved within the walls of the estab-
lishment. Instead, their words depict an institution that is fundamentally at odds with
key promises of liberal democracy. For those confined, detention seems arbitrary and
unrestrained by due process or legal certainty. The state is vindictive and capricious.
Inadequate health care and substandard living conditions in the shadow of deportation
communicate their exclusion from a community of value as well as of rights
(Anderson, 2013).
When viewed in these terms, the ‘pains of immigration detention’do not spring solely
from the centres themselves, and thus do not fit within sociological traditions of study that
have marked out so much of prison studies since Gresham Sykes (Crewe, 2011; Sykes,
1958). Rather, the problems I describe below raise fundamental (philosophical and pol-
itical) questions about the ethics and legitimacy of border control in liberal democracies
like the UK (Bauböck, 2020; Benhabib, 2004; Carens, 2008; Cole, 2000; Ellermann,
2010; 2014; Hayter, 2004; Wellman and Cole, 2011). In so doing, they demonstrate
the relevance of empirical research for normative debate (Herzog and Zacka, 2017;
Longo, 2018; Longo and Zacka, 2019).
The paper proceeds as follows: First I sketch the current UK immigration detention
system and some of the ways in which criminologists have approached similar insti-
tutions elsewhere. Then I turn to the survey methodology used to gather and organise
the testimonies I cite. The bulk of the paper reflects on the implications of common
issues identified by people in detention for our understanding of the role and nature
of immigration detention in liberal democracy. Specifically, I assess claims about
access to justice, inadequate medical care, and the impact of detention on people’s
families and their sense of self, as political statements that have a far wider implica-
tion than the nature of the specific institutions in which people are held. In conclusion,
I argue that the pain people in detention recount illuminates the need for a new politics
which is angled towards abolition (Hayter, 2004), not just because we feel compas-
sion for these specific individuals, but because suffering (always) demands redress
(Shklar, 1982).
308 Punishment & Society 25(2)
To continue reading
Request your trial