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Refugees: Tightening the Screw 125
been moved to the hospital wings of prisons on the grounds that Campsfield
facilities are inadequate.
There have been two reports on Campsfield by HM Inspectorate of Prisons,
the first by Judge Stephen Tumim, published in 1995, the second by Sir David
Ramsbotham, published in 1998. Both contained strong criticisms. Tumim
noted a ‘prevailing sadness’ and a ‘settled misery’ among detainees.
Ramsbotham was particularly critical of the lack of rules governing the
running of the centre, which he said constituted a danger for both detainees
and staff. He noted that ‘When detainees begin to behave in a disruptive way
the only control option appears to be a removal to prison detention, which
is a grossly inappropriate and unsatisfactory sanction.’ The threat and
actuality of removal to other prisons is one of the aspects of Campsfield that
detainees find hardest to bear. The threat when Campsfield was first opened
was Haslar; it is now Rochester. Not only are both places probably worse
than Campsfield, although some detainees report that prison guards are less
racist than Group 4, but removal often means the loss or partial loss of
visitors, friends and other support networks. Detainees have also been
transferred to Winson Green, Bullingdon, Wormwood Scrubs, Holloway and
Blakenhurst prisons.
By 1997 at least 35 detainees had been removed to other prisons. During
1997, according to the Ramsbotham report, 24 detainees were removed ‘at
the request of Group 4 staff’. The process, like detention itself, is arbitrary
and unaccountable. Decisions to remove are formally made by immigration
officers, but they are generally at the request of, or after consultation with,
Group 4. There are no legal processes, no time limits, no formal charges and
sometimes no stated reasons, written or other. In reality removals seldom
follow anything which might truly be described as ‘disruptive behaviour’.
Ramsbotham himself reported that the Group 4 centre manager had told
him that ‘the transfer of detainees to prison was dependent on available
spaces; they could be moved arbitrarily regardless of good or bad behaviour’.
Visitors speculate that ‘arbitrary and unexplained transfers’ might have as
their purpose to separate detainees from visitors and friends and so make
deportation easier. Dr Evan Harris, the Liberal Democrat MP in whose constituency
Campsfield is, and who has been active in the defence of refugees
and highly critical of detention at Campsfield, reported at a public meeting
organised by the Campaign to Close Campsfield that the head of Home Office
enforcement had told him that, since the ‘detainee population’ was 800–900
and the places in detention centres were only 500–600, when places became
available in prisons it was necessary to take them up. In addition, Evan Harris
said, people who are ‘fingered’ for transfer by profit-making private security
companies are liable to include people who incur extra costs, for example
because they are ill and require escorts to hospital. Who gets transferred also
has much to do with the likes and dislikes of Group 4 guards. As the October
1996 issue no. 8 of the Campsfield Monitor reported,