The rightwhinge tabloids are frothing at the mouth again (or at least their editors and journalists are pretending to) at the spectre of so-called 'foreign national prisoners' living "in luxury £1.6m detention centres" as the Express puts it. [1] This non-story about foreign national ex-prisoners who have been selected for deportation being transferred straight from prisons to detention centres where they languish (though that is clearly not the tabloids' view) stems from the Daily Mail picking up on [1] the latest Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) report on Lindholme IRC.
This 124 place detention centre is sited next to HMP Lindholme and is run for the UKBA by the Prison Service. It is not a "luxury detention centre" but, like the prison it shares a split site with, it consists of converted building of what was RAF Lindholme. The cells in the IRC side are very much like those in the HMP side. Yes, they have access to a library, an activities centre and fitness suite and, unlike the prison-side, do not have to pay for access to a TV. [3] However, the claim that each detainee has a key to his room and that rooms have a secure locker [4] contradicts the most recent Chief Inspector of Prison (HMIoP) findings:
"The accommodation was minimally decorated and little had been done to promote an IRC, rather than a prison, environment. The fabric of some rooms was in a poor condition. There were many worn and thin mattresses, with no system for checking and replacing them. Most shower facilities were adequate, but many toilets were dirty and some had no locks. Some rooms were hot and difficult to ventilate, particularly as many had broken window handles. Most detainees did not have access to lockable cabinets, although a delivery of keys arrived during the inspection. A number of televisions, Freeview boxes and aerial sockets were not in working order." [pg. 12]
"Living accommodation was functional but in need of maintenance, and the units were austere. Movement around the centre was restricted, with detainees spending substantial periods locked on their units. Toilets were dirty but shower facilities were appropriate and well maintained. Laundry arrangements were limited." [pg. 21]
"However, detainees’ own medicines were not secure in their rooms, as for many there was no facility for locking them away. In most cases, medicines were stored on the window sills of detainees’ rooms." [pg. 45]
Does that sound like the lap of luxury?
Now, we fully understand that this opportunity to indulge in a bout of simulated outrage was too good to pass up as it conflates two tabloid standbys, crime and immigration, so it is of no surprise for anyone who has bothered to read the IMB report itself to see that the Board's "concern at the numbers of ex-foreign national prisoners having served their sentences and now held as detainees in the Centre" are not the only issues highlighted. Also of 'concern' were the numbers of people held in excess of 6 months, not just the ex-FNPs highlighted in the tabloids; problems with healthcare provision by Serco, with no dedicated nurse for the IRC and staff shortages leading to nurses being redeployed on a priority basis to the prison-side; and general low staffing levels. Of course, these sort of problems don't generate the sort of juicy headlines that tabloid editors crave.
1] The Express also claims that this fact (i.e. "Foreign criminals who should be deported are being sent to luxury detention centres costing taxpayers millions of pounds") "emerged last night." This is utter rubbish. This situation has been going on ever since Nu Labour decided that deporting ex-FNPs was the politically expedient this to do. Even the Mail did not make such a stupid claim as it looks better to highlight that, "Concerns about the situation have been raised in two [annual] reports by the Independent Monitoring Board." Missed a trick there Jeeves.
2] One of the tabloids tricks is to monitor IMB and HMIoP reports for nice juicy bits of information to exploit for their own anti-foreigner ends.
3] Where did the idea that detainees have access to radios come from? It's not in the IMB report.
4] Repeated word for word from the introductions of reports going all the way back to 2006-07 (reports before then no longer available), so it appears that the actuality of this had not been checked by the IMB, unlike the HMIoP.
Tuesday, 20 July 2010
Sherzad's Story
There is an interview on the BBC News website with one of the Iraqi detainees forcibly deported back to Baghdad on 16 June that briefly hit the news because of the violence meted out by G4S staff.
Sunday, 18 July 2010
Libyan Update
The precarious situation that the 400 or so Eritrean migrants currently stranded in Libya has taken a number of convoluted turns since the mass forced movements we wrote about on 1 July. Having been threatened with mass forced deportation if they did not fill out bio-data forms provided by the Eritrean embassy, which they refused to do will put their families in Eritrea at risk and clear the way for their deportation back to Eritrea. Of the 140 detainees who have signed the forms, many claim they were either tricked or were pressured into doing so.
The removal of the 205 Eritrean detainees transferred to Sabha, and who eventually ended up in the al-Biraq detention centre, was part of the authorities attempts to pressure them into signing the bio-data forms. Sources indicate that 10 of the al-Biraq were taken out and beaten as an example to try and force the Eritreans to cooperate. Of those who remained in Misrata, it is claimed that a group including 31 men, 13 women and 7 children were beaten on 7 July when they again refused to fill in forms.
International condemnation followed with Green Party MEPs publicly condemning the conditions the refugees were being held in. The European Council on Refugees and Exile called upon Italy to return the 250 Eritreans they had previously expelled back to Libya and Human Rights Watch said that all victims of the Italian-Libyan 'push back' policy should be allowed to proceed to Italy and claim asylum.
Whilst international pressure was building, the Italian and Libyan governments were in talks trying to find a compromise position. The Italians claim that they had managed to broker a deal for the release of the Eritrean detainees to do "socially useful" work in Libya at the direction of Libyan authorities. This would involve the issue of temporary documentation allowing the Eritreans to stay in Libya for 3 months. However, after the permits run out they will be back in the same situation all other undocumented people in Libya are subject to, arbitrary arrest and imprisonment and ultimately forced deportation.
So, on the evening on the 15th, the Sabha detainees were release onto the street with, as they claim "no food, water or documentation to allow free movement", despite promises of the temporary permits. The subsequently put out an international appeal for help. The other detained Eritreans across Libya were also released but it now appears that it was merely an attempt by the two governments to “lower the tension” and little has changed.
Given Italian intransigence on fulfilling its international obligations towards refugees, the total lack of any system for claiming asylum in Libya itself, the appalling state of Libyan prisons and the burning desire of the Eritrean government to get its hand on those who have fled the country, it appears inevitable that at some point there will be mass deportation of the Libyan Eritreans back to Samara, where they will face persecution, prison, forced labour and, for some, death.
Blogs: 1, 2, 3
The removal of the 205 Eritrean detainees transferred to Sabha, and who eventually ended up in the al-Biraq detention centre, was part of the authorities attempts to pressure them into signing the bio-data forms. Sources indicate that 10 of the al-Biraq were taken out and beaten as an example to try and force the Eritreans to cooperate. Of those who remained in Misrata, it is claimed that a group including 31 men, 13 women and 7 children were beaten on 7 July when they again refused to fill in forms.
International condemnation followed with Green Party MEPs publicly condemning the conditions the refugees were being held in. The European Council on Refugees and Exile called upon Italy to return the 250 Eritreans they had previously expelled back to Libya and Human Rights Watch said that all victims of the Italian-Libyan 'push back' policy should be allowed to proceed to Italy and claim asylum.
Whilst international pressure was building, the Italian and Libyan governments were in talks trying to find a compromise position. The Italians claim that they had managed to broker a deal for the release of the Eritrean detainees to do "socially useful" work in Libya at the direction of Libyan authorities. This would involve the issue of temporary documentation allowing the Eritreans to stay in Libya for 3 months. However, after the permits run out they will be back in the same situation all other undocumented people in Libya are subject to, arbitrary arrest and imprisonment and ultimately forced deportation.
So, on the evening on the 15th, the Sabha detainees were release onto the street with, as they claim "no food, water or documentation to allow free movement", despite promises of the temporary permits. The subsequently put out an international appeal for help. The other detained Eritreans across Libya were also released but it now appears that it was merely an attempt by the two governments to “lower the tension” and little has changed.
Given Italian intransigence on fulfilling its international obligations towards refugees, the total lack of any system for claiming asylum in Libya itself, the appalling state of Libyan prisons and the burning desire of the Eritrean government to get its hand on those who have fled the country, it appears inevitable that at some point there will be mass deportation of the Libyan Eritreans back to Samara, where they will face persecution, prison, forced labour and, for some, death.
Blogs: 1, 2, 3
Friday, 16 July 2010
Brook House: An Alternative View
The following article was offered to the Guardian 'Comment Is Free' strand last week. We assume they were not interested as no response was forthcoming.
The Chief Inspector of Prison's Report on the full announced inspection of
Brook House Immigration Removal Centre in March certain makes for depressing reading:
"one of the least safe immigration detention facilities we have inspected";
"deeply frustrated detainees and demoralised staff";
"[We found] a degree of despair amongst detainees about safety...which we have rarely encountered. Bullying and violence were serious problems and – unusually for the immigration detention estate - drugs were a serious problem. Many detainees were ex-prisoners and a number compared their experience in Brook House negatively to that in prison";
"Use of force was high, separation was often used as a punishment, contrary to the Detention Centre Rules, and freedom of movement had been restricted in an attempt to combat violence."
But should we be in any way surprised by the Inspectorate's finding?
As the report itself acknowledges, Brook House was originally designed for holding 426 detainees "for only a short time before removal or release", and here lies one of the two cornerstones of its myriad of problems.
It was never meant to hold, for example, the numbers of detainees that the Inspector found had been there, for example, for 4 or more months (40%). These were not just the inevitable victims of the mission creep languishing in the system that typifies 'temporary administrative detention' (17% of BH detainees detained for 6 months or more, three for more than 3 years), they are the very 'foreign national prisoners' slated for deportation that the Category B prison-style facility was built to process.
The creation of this special category of prisoner was a typical piece of ill thought out vindictive New Labour policy, pandering to Mr and Mrs Daily Mail reader. Not only patently racist, punishing someone for being a foreigner as well as for committing a crime, it has clogged up the detention estate with ex-prisoners who it is unable to remove from the country.
Good publicity in theory, bad policy in practice.
The other wellspring of Brook House's problems is the way in which it is run and, more specifically, the way G4S operates what are now recognised as the 3 worst run English detention centres. G4S, like all large outsourcing companies, maximises its profits by paying its staff lower wages, giving them less training and operating at lower staff ratios than exist in the public sector. This inevitably leads to a high rate of turnover amongst an inexperienced staff that, according to the report, was exacerbated by last June's disturbance.
The inevitable results are an embattled and pressurised staff who "lacked the confidence to manage bad behaviour", consistently responded to incidents with a "high level of spontaneous use of force" and "were bullied by more difficult detainees." And it was not just the guards that felt unsafe, 68% of detainees surveyed said that they had felt unsafe at some point during their time in Brook House, against 42% for the IRC comparator. The most recent figure for Colnbrook IRC, run by Serco and the only other Category B standard detention centre, was 61% (against a comparator of 48% in 2007).
Another factor highlighted in the report that throws light onto how the centre operates is what the Inspector calls "a significant drugs problem"; though how significant is open to debate. Whilst there had been a massive increase in staff security incident report about drugs in the IRC's first 9 months of operation, seizures were very few and the Inspectorate's own survey of detainees only found 35% of respondents labelling drug availability as being a safety concern, the same as the last inspection of Colnbrook in 2008.
That said, it is not surprising that there is a drugs problem given the pressures created by the poor design of the prison; the lack of activities; the long lengths of detention; with many detainees facing uncertain futures, removed from their UK families; isolated and facing violence inside Brook House; not to mention those suffering PTSD.
Interestingly, like most prisons, the main route in for drugs has been identified as visits. Though, given the recent Policy Exchange report's suggestion that the majority of drugs in prison involve corrupt prison officers, and the low staff wages, they might look elsewhere.
Now, given that announced inspections usually mean everybody, including the prisoners, are on their best behaviour, the picture the Inspectorate gets is often skewed. One group, however, other than the detainees themselves, who do get a regular unvarnished view of how an admittedly small area of the detention centre operates, are the visitors. And it is this group who have had to bear the brunt of the management's growing paranoia over drugs, as well as the standard problems resulting from poor design and staff shortages.
Not only do they have to put up with a cramped visiting room with a limited number of visiting slots and no access to toilet facilities but, since the increased drugs-related security, the length of time it takes to get into visit has significantly increased, eating into valuable visiting time. That, plus staff shortages, has resulted in daily visiting hours being split into two separate sessions and increasingly petty rules, like where one can and cannot sit when one finally does get inside.
All have led to increased tension and regular angry disruptions of visiting times by visitors. Yet G4S’ own ‘satisfaction’ figures posted in the same room claim that 80% of visitors are treated with respect and dignity (the Inspectorate’s figure was 53%).
The Chief Inspector of Prison's Report on the full announced inspection of
Brook House Immigration Removal Centre in March certain makes for depressing reading:
"one of the least safe immigration detention facilities we have inspected";
"deeply frustrated detainees and demoralised staff";
"[We found] a degree of despair amongst detainees about safety...which we have rarely encountered. Bullying and violence were serious problems and – unusually for the immigration detention estate - drugs were a serious problem. Many detainees were ex-prisoners and a number compared their experience in Brook House negatively to that in prison";
"Use of force was high, separation was often used as a punishment, contrary to the Detention Centre Rules, and freedom of movement had been restricted in an attempt to combat violence."
But should we be in any way surprised by the Inspectorate's finding?
As the report itself acknowledges, Brook House was originally designed for holding 426 detainees "for only a short time before removal or release", and here lies one of the two cornerstones of its myriad of problems.
It was never meant to hold, for example, the numbers of detainees that the Inspector found had been there, for example, for 4 or more months (40%). These were not just the inevitable victims of the mission creep languishing in the system that typifies 'temporary administrative detention' (17% of BH detainees detained for 6 months or more, three for more than 3 years), they are the very 'foreign national prisoners' slated for deportation that the Category B prison-style facility was built to process.
The creation of this special category of prisoner was a typical piece of ill thought out vindictive New Labour policy, pandering to Mr and Mrs Daily Mail reader. Not only patently racist, punishing someone for being a foreigner as well as for committing a crime, it has clogged up the detention estate with ex-prisoners who it is unable to remove from the country.
Good publicity in theory, bad policy in practice.
The other wellspring of Brook House's problems is the way in which it is run and, more specifically, the way G4S operates what are now recognised as the 3 worst run English detention centres. G4S, like all large outsourcing companies, maximises its profits by paying its staff lower wages, giving them less training and operating at lower staff ratios than exist in the public sector. This inevitably leads to a high rate of turnover amongst an inexperienced staff that, according to the report, was exacerbated by last June's disturbance.
The inevitable results are an embattled and pressurised staff who "lacked the confidence to manage bad behaviour", consistently responded to incidents with a "high level of spontaneous use of force" and "were bullied by more difficult detainees." And it was not just the guards that felt unsafe, 68% of detainees surveyed said that they had felt unsafe at some point during their time in Brook House, against 42% for the IRC comparator. The most recent figure for Colnbrook IRC, run by Serco and the only other Category B standard detention centre, was 61% (against a comparator of 48% in 2007).
Another factor highlighted in the report that throws light onto how the centre operates is what the Inspector calls "a significant drugs problem"; though how significant is open to debate. Whilst there had been a massive increase in staff security incident report about drugs in the IRC's first 9 months of operation, seizures were very few and the Inspectorate's own survey of detainees only found 35% of respondents labelling drug availability as being a safety concern, the same as the last inspection of Colnbrook in 2008.
That said, it is not surprising that there is a drugs problem given the pressures created by the poor design of the prison; the lack of activities; the long lengths of detention; with many detainees facing uncertain futures, removed from their UK families; isolated and facing violence inside Brook House; not to mention those suffering PTSD.
Interestingly, like most prisons, the main route in for drugs has been identified as visits. Though, given the recent Policy Exchange report's suggestion that the majority of drugs in prison involve corrupt prison officers, and the low staff wages, they might look elsewhere.
Now, given that announced inspections usually mean everybody, including the prisoners, are on their best behaviour, the picture the Inspectorate gets is often skewed. One group, however, other than the detainees themselves, who do get a regular unvarnished view of how an admittedly small area of the detention centre operates, are the visitors. And it is this group who have had to bear the brunt of the management's growing paranoia over drugs, as well as the standard problems resulting from poor design and staff shortages.
Not only do they have to put up with a cramped visiting room with a limited number of visiting slots and no access to toilet facilities but, since the increased drugs-related security, the length of time it takes to get into visit has significantly increased, eating into valuable visiting time. That, plus staff shortages, has resulted in daily visiting hours being split into two separate sessions and increasingly petty rules, like where one can and cannot sit when one finally does get inside.
All have led to increased tension and regular angry disruptions of visiting times by visitors. Yet G4S’ own ‘satisfaction’ figures posted in the same room claim that 80% of visitors are treated with respect and dignity (the Inspectorate’s figure was 53%).
Thursday, 15 July 2010
Fair Play Or Foul?
Or Just Plain Mindless Bureaucracy?
If the US government, who insisted the rest of the world institutes the stringent machine-readable requirements for 'acceptable' forms of passports, are willing to temporarily recognise the Iroquios lacrosse team's non-machine readable passports* to cross their borders, then why are the UK Borders Agency not willing to accept and allow the issuing visas for the team's trip to what should be a prestigious tournament that would reflect well on the UK? Clearly the spirit of fair play did not enter into it but at least the chances of the England team winning their first match in the 2010 World Lacrosse Championship (which was due to be against the Iroqoius) has improved following the decision and has improved their chances of making it out of the first round Blue Division.
* That they and other members of the Iroquois Confederacy have successfully used to travel around the globe for the past 33 years.
If the US government, who insisted the rest of the world institutes the stringent machine-readable requirements for 'acceptable' forms of passports, are willing to temporarily recognise the Iroquios lacrosse team's non-machine readable passports* to cross their borders, then why are the UK Borders Agency not willing to accept and allow the issuing visas for the team's trip to what should be a prestigious tournament that would reflect well on the UK? Clearly the spirit of fair play did not enter into it but at least the chances of the England team winning their first match in the 2010 World Lacrosse Championship (which was due to be against the Iroqoius) has improved following the decision and has improved their chances of making it out of the first round Blue Division.
* That they and other members of the Iroquois Confederacy have successfully used to travel around the globe for the past 33 years.
Wednesday, 14 July 2010
More Racist Shock Tactics
It was inevitable that the yellow press would latch onto the University of Leeds' School of Geography working paper on 'Ethnic Population Projections for the UK and Local Areas, 2001-2051' as an opportunity to launch into a bout of immigration-bashing and/or rekindle the 'immigration-led population boom' scare [see: 'The Myth Of The 70 Million'] that is one of their perennial favourites. Their efforts to push all the right racist buttons (or should that be 'blow the correct dog whistles'?) provided mixed results.
The Express clearly came top of the list in plumbing new depths (if you'll excuse the mixed metaphors) with its typically shouty and patently obvious racist headline 'ONE IN 5 BRITONS WILL BE ETHNICS'(sic)*
Getting right down to the nitty gritty, without of course explaining what the Leeds paper is actually about, they essayed:
"ONE in five of Britain’s population will be from an ethnic minority by the middle of the century, an explosive report forecasts today.
The figure will rocket from the current level of eight per cent to 20 per cent over the next 40 years, it concludes.
And the ethnic profile of middle-class suburban and rural areas will change significantly as black and Asian families move out of inner-city areas, it says. Overall, the UK’s total population will soar from its present 61 million to 78 million over the same period."
[Translation: Two and a half times as many foreigners 40 years from now and, to top it all, they'll be moving out of the ghettos that we've managed to restrict them to up til now and moving out to where we leave. Plus they'll continue breeding like rabbits. Woe, woe and thrice woe.]
And just in case you had missed the implication the Express wished to highlight:
"The report, by researchers at the University of Leeds, will fuel fears that Britain faces acute overcrowding in the next generation, intensifying pressure on the Government to curb immigration." Utter tosh, which anyone who has read the Leeds paper knows but what Express reader is likely to do so?
Like so much of their immigration coverage this year, the Mail came a paltry second to the Express' bile and could only manage the rather limp 'One in five Britons 'will be from an ethnic minority by 2051''.
"UK population will rocket to 78million by middle of century
One in five of the population will be from an ethnic minority by the middle of this century, according to a new report.
Researchers concluded that the figure will rocket from the current rate of eight per cent - and that people from minority backgrounds will be living in more affluent areas.
Just one in ten of the population was from an ethnic minority ten years ago."
Rather limp really compared to Desmond's rag. And just to show you how little effort Jack Doyle, the article's author, put in, the next two lines are:
"Researchers at The University of Leeds also concluded that the population of the UK could reach nearly 80million by the middle of this century.
Higher birth rates and people living longer as well as immigration would pushed the population to 78.8million by 2051."
Clearly Mr Doyle is still learning his trade at the Mail and has made the mistake of both qualifying the 80m figure and of allowing that something other than immigration might be a causal factor behind the population growth. No doubt he'll learn his lesson and be parroting the house style fluently before soon.
Compared to both these efforts, Desmond's other 'newspaper' the Star's article was positively wishy washy: 'Changing Faces Of Britain 2050'! Sounds like something out of the national Geographic. Yet none of them managed to plumb the depths of racist stupidity that the Press and Journal, an Aberdeen-based DC Thompson publication, stooped to: 'Immigrants to make up 20% of UK population'. Priceless.
So what about this research project, which we assume none of these well-paid 'journalists' have bothered to read? The Economic and Social Research Council-financed project is part an on-going effort by the Leeds University geography department to "understand demographic changes that the UK’s local ethnic populations presently experience and will experience in the future."
"We are investigating how differences in ethnic fertility and mortality shape current and future population trends, how international migration and internal migration impact the size and ethnic composition of local populations. The project team will build projections of ethnic group populations for local areas and use the projection model to explore alternative futures."
This involves the modelling of 5 separate projections based on different sets of assumptions for mortality/fertility/immigration/emigration for 16 ethnic groups, which inevitably display hugely varying end results, even when allowing for 'aggregation effects'. The end point of this modelling is to produce a form of population projection that takes into account differences in the dynamics of the various ethnic groupings selected, the 2 so-called UPTAP (Understanding Population Trends and Processes) models.
And inevitably, the media have focused on the 'worst case scenario', the (UPTAP-EF - emigration flow) model that produces the highest population growth, rather than their other (UPTAP-ER - emigration rate) model. In fact, as the paper points out "UPTAP-EF and UPTAP-ER produce total populations in 2051 that differ by 9.1 millions."
The reasons for these differences and the merits of the different projects are too complex to go into here but we would like to highlight one of the report's conclusions, where it compares its results with previously released ONS estimates for ethnic groups in 2007 [i.e. NPP 2008].
"We compare the latest in this series, for mid-2007, with our projections for mid-2007. The differences over just six years are considerable. Our figure for the England population is 359 thousand greater than that of ONS or 0.70% greater. Our estimates for the White population are larger than those of ONS while our ethnic minority estimates are lower. Some of the lower figures for Asian or Asian British groups or Black or Black British groups may be a result of introducing ethnic specific mortality as these groups had lower life expectancies than the total population.
That we should obtain such different estimates over a very short period is concerning and will need to be investigated in detail. The differences serve to highlight that there is a great deal of uncertainty in estimating the population broken down by ethnicity."
* For other analysis of the Express' obvious racist intent see: Five Chinese Crackers, Enemies of Reason and Tabloid Watch.
The Express clearly came top of the list in plumbing new depths (if you'll excuse the mixed metaphors) with its typically shouty and patently obvious racist headline 'ONE IN 5 BRITONS WILL BE ETHNICS'(sic)*
Getting right down to the nitty gritty, without of course explaining what the Leeds paper is actually about, they essayed:
"ONE in five of Britain’s population will be from an ethnic minority by the middle of the century, an explosive report forecasts today.
The figure will rocket from the current level of eight per cent to 20 per cent over the next 40 years, it concludes.
And the ethnic profile of middle-class suburban and rural areas will change significantly as black and Asian families move out of inner-city areas, it says. Overall, the UK’s total population will soar from its present 61 million to 78 million over the same period."
[Translation: Two and a half times as many foreigners 40 years from now and, to top it all, they'll be moving out of the ghettos that we've managed to restrict them to up til now and moving out to where we leave. Plus they'll continue breeding like rabbits. Woe, woe and thrice woe.]
And just in case you had missed the implication the Express wished to highlight:
"The report, by researchers at the University of Leeds, will fuel fears that Britain faces acute overcrowding in the next generation, intensifying pressure on the Government to curb immigration." Utter tosh, which anyone who has read the Leeds paper knows but what Express reader is likely to do so?
Like so much of their immigration coverage this year, the Mail came a paltry second to the Express' bile and could only manage the rather limp 'One in five Britons 'will be from an ethnic minority by 2051''.
"UK population will rocket to 78million by middle of century
One in five of the population will be from an ethnic minority by the middle of this century, according to a new report.
Researchers concluded that the figure will rocket from the current rate of eight per cent - and that people from minority backgrounds will be living in more affluent areas.
Just one in ten of the population was from an ethnic minority ten years ago."
Rather limp really compared to Desmond's rag. And just to show you how little effort Jack Doyle, the article's author, put in, the next two lines are:
"Researchers at The University of Leeds also concluded that the population of the UK could reach nearly 80million by the middle of this century.
Higher birth rates and people living longer as well as immigration would pushed the population to 78.8million by 2051."
Clearly Mr Doyle is still learning his trade at the Mail and has made the mistake of both qualifying the 80m figure and of allowing that something other than immigration might be a causal factor behind the population growth. No doubt he'll learn his lesson and be parroting the house style fluently before soon.
Compared to both these efforts, Desmond's other 'newspaper' the Star's article was positively wishy washy: 'Changing Faces Of Britain 2050'! Sounds like something out of the national Geographic. Yet none of them managed to plumb the depths of racist stupidity that the Press and Journal, an Aberdeen-based DC Thompson publication, stooped to: 'Immigrants to make up 20% of UK population'. Priceless.
So what about this research project, which we assume none of these well-paid 'journalists' have bothered to read? The Economic and Social Research Council-financed project is part an on-going effort by the Leeds University geography department to "understand demographic changes that the UK’s local ethnic populations presently experience and will experience in the future."
"We are investigating how differences in ethnic fertility and mortality shape current and future population trends, how international migration and internal migration impact the size and ethnic composition of local populations. The project team will build projections of ethnic group populations for local areas and use the projection model to explore alternative futures."
This involves the modelling of 5 separate projections based on different sets of assumptions for mortality/fertility/immigration/emigration for 16 ethnic groups, which inevitably display hugely varying end results, even when allowing for 'aggregation effects'. The end point of this modelling is to produce a form of population projection that takes into account differences in the dynamics of the various ethnic groupings selected, the 2 so-called UPTAP (Understanding Population Trends and Processes) models.
And inevitably, the media have focused on the 'worst case scenario', the (UPTAP-EF - emigration flow) model that produces the highest population growth, rather than their other (UPTAP-ER - emigration rate) model. In fact, as the paper points out "UPTAP-EF and UPTAP-ER produce total populations in 2051 that differ by 9.1 millions."The reasons for these differences and the merits of the different projects are too complex to go into here but we would like to highlight one of the report's conclusions, where it compares its results with previously released ONS estimates for ethnic groups in 2007 [i.e. NPP 2008].
"We compare the latest in this series, for mid-2007, with our projections for mid-2007. The differences over just six years are considerable. Our figure for the England population is 359 thousand greater than that of ONS or 0.70% greater. Our estimates for the White population are larger than those of ONS while our ethnic minority estimates are lower. Some of the lower figures for Asian or Asian British groups or Black or Black British groups may be a result of introducing ethnic specific mortality as these groups had lower life expectancies than the total population.
That we should obtain such different estimates over a very short period is concerning and will need to be investigated in detail. The differences serve to highlight that there is a great deal of uncertainty in estimating the population broken down by ethnicity."
* For other analysis of the Express' obvious racist intent see: Five Chinese Crackers, Enemies of Reason and Tabloid Watch.
Monday, 12 July 2010
Brook House IRC: A Sorry Tale
In the latest of a long line of condemnatory inspection reports on the running of the detention estate, Anne Owers, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, has severely criticised the management and staff of outsourcing privateers G4S who run the category B prison-standard Brook House detention centre for running "one of the least safe immigration detention facilities we have inspected, with deeply frustrated detainees and demoralised staff, some of whom lacked the necessary confidence to manage those in their care."
The report highlights serious failings in a number of areas, including bullying; "the worst results ever seen in the IRC estate about levels of safety"; inappropriate use of force by "demoralised staff" on "deeply frustrated detainees"; inappropriate use of isolation in defiance of Detention Centre rules; a lack of purposeful activity; the widespread availability of drugs; problematic access legal advice and representation; a lack of confidence in the complaints system amongst detainees; "clearly inadequate" mental health care; restricted access to education and exercise; and a lack of welfare provision and systematic pre-release support, and goes on to make 188 separate recommendations on how the centre's regime should be improved.
At the core of these failings are a number of problems inherent in the way the detention system operates. Firstly, Brook House was originally designed to operate as a high security short-term handling centre for detainees including ex-prisoners facing imminent deportation. Yet many detainees are held there for far longer than originally envisaged, the routine experience across the detention estate. "The challenge at Brook House was significantly compounded by poor design which built in boredom by providing too little purposeful activity on the erroneous assumption that detainees would be staying only a few days." Thus, 41% had been in Brook House more than 6 months and 15% more than 1 year. The poor design, coupled with the prolonged length of detention, also had a direct effect on the lack of activities available to detainees, and therefore had a direct knock-on effect on discipline.
Another problem, which is common to all facets of the detention estate, is the inevitable bureaucratic ineptitude of such systems where, for example, ten Zimbabweans were found to be being held at the centre, despite the suspension of enforced removals to Harare. One of these had been in detention for three years and four months. Such problems can be laid directly at the door of the UK Borders Agency. However, many of the problems the Inspectorate found at Brook House were as a direct result of the way G4S operates.
G4S has done very nicely out of running parts of the last year, contributing a tidy sum to the £500m in pre-tax profit it made last year on an overall group turnover of £7bn. And like most other outsourcing companies, it maximises its profits by cutting its running costs to the bone: employing poorly trained staff on the lowest wages at at the lowest staffing levels they can get away with. The consequence is a high staff turnover and low morale. This was exacerbated at Brook House by what the report terms "an outbreak of serious disorder the previous summer", an incident that the company and UKBA played down at the time.
The result is what appears to be a general lack of communication between staff and prisoners and "a high level of spontaneous use of force in response to incidents on wings and in the separation unit", something that appears to relate directly to the staff's own perceived lack of control over the detainees. The inspection also found "[t]here was little confidence in the complaints system. There were some long delays in replies to complaints, which were often unhelpful and likely to frustrate." Compared to the standard detention estate comparator, Brook House residents made significantly more complaints 39% vs. 33%, but only 16% (4) of the 25 non-English speaking respondents (against 44% of the 129 English speakers). This appears in large part due to the fact that, whilst complaint forms were available in 8 languages, the actual instructions on how to complain were only available in English.*
Detainees and visitors to Brook House have complained about the way the centre operates from day one and nothing much has changed. In fact, the situation has deteriorated and it's time that the government cut its losses and closed this expensive white elephant. It has the perfect excuse: give G4S the elbow and save some of our hard earned taxes.
* Additionally, "significantly fewer non-English speakers (32%) than English speakers (56%) reported being treated well or very well by escort staff and 36% compared with 52% by reception staff. Significantly more non-English speakers (80%) than English speakers (66%) reported feeling unsafe."
The report highlights serious failings in a number of areas, including bullying; "the worst results ever seen in the IRC estate about levels of safety"; inappropriate use of force by "demoralised staff" on "deeply frustrated detainees"; inappropriate use of isolation in defiance of Detention Centre rules; a lack of purposeful activity; the widespread availability of drugs; problematic access legal advice and representation; a lack of confidence in the complaints system amongst detainees; "clearly inadequate" mental health care; restricted access to education and exercise; and a lack of welfare provision and systematic pre-release support, and goes on to make 188 separate recommendations on how the centre's regime should be improved.
At the core of these failings are a number of problems inherent in the way the detention system operates. Firstly, Brook House was originally designed to operate as a high security short-term handling centre for detainees including ex-prisoners facing imminent deportation. Yet many detainees are held there for far longer than originally envisaged, the routine experience across the detention estate. "The challenge at Brook House was significantly compounded by poor design which built in boredom by providing too little purposeful activity on the erroneous assumption that detainees would be staying only a few days." Thus, 41% had been in Brook House more than 6 months and 15% more than 1 year. The poor design, coupled with the prolonged length of detention, also had a direct effect on the lack of activities available to detainees, and therefore had a direct knock-on effect on discipline.
Another problem, which is common to all facets of the detention estate, is the inevitable bureaucratic ineptitude of such systems where, for example, ten Zimbabweans were found to be being held at the centre, despite the suspension of enforced removals to Harare. One of these had been in detention for three years and four months. Such problems can be laid directly at the door of the UK Borders Agency. However, many of the problems the Inspectorate found at Brook House were as a direct result of the way G4S operates.
G4S has done very nicely out of running parts of the last year, contributing a tidy sum to the £500m in pre-tax profit it made last year on an overall group turnover of £7bn. And like most other outsourcing companies, it maximises its profits by cutting its running costs to the bone: employing poorly trained staff on the lowest wages at at the lowest staffing levels they can get away with. The consequence is a high staff turnover and low morale. This was exacerbated at Brook House by what the report terms "an outbreak of serious disorder the previous summer", an incident that the company and UKBA played down at the time.
The result is what appears to be a general lack of communication between staff and prisoners and "a high level of spontaneous use of force in response to incidents on wings and in the separation unit", something that appears to relate directly to the staff's own perceived lack of control over the detainees. The inspection also found "[t]here was little confidence in the complaints system. There were some long delays in replies to complaints, which were often unhelpful and likely to frustrate." Compared to the standard detention estate comparator, Brook House residents made significantly more complaints 39% vs. 33%, but only 16% (4) of the 25 non-English speaking respondents (against 44% of the 129 English speakers). This appears in large part due to the fact that, whilst complaint forms were available in 8 languages, the actual instructions on how to complain were only available in English.*
Detainees and visitors to Brook House have complained about the way the centre operates from day one and nothing much has changed. In fact, the situation has deteriorated and it's time that the government cut its losses and closed this expensive white elephant. It has the perfect excuse: give G4S the elbow and save some of our hard earned taxes.
* Additionally, "significantly fewer non-English speakers (32%) than English speakers (56%) reported being treated well or very well by escort staff and 36% compared with 52% by reception staff. Significantly more non-English speakers (80%) than English speakers (66%) reported feeling unsafe."
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