What’s wrong with detention

As of the 25th of June 2010, there were 4116 people in immigration detention. This included 1662 in immigration detention on the mainland and 2454 in immigration detention on Christmas Island. Of the total people in immigration detention, there were 566 children being detained. Five-hundred and seventy five of all individuals had been in detention for more than 6 months.

Australia remains the only Western country in the world to mandate detention indiscriminately for all individuals entering the country without valid visas. According to the 1958 Australian Migration Act, all persons within Australia must be detained if they do not possess either a valid visa or Australian citizenship. The law has meant that Australia has been able to legally and indiscriminately detain all men, women, and children, whether they be sick, pregnant or elderly.
These detention centres also bare Australian tax payers to huge costs. The cost of detaining an individual asylum seeker is around $120 a day or $50,000 per year. It is also estimated that the cumulative figures for building and administering Australian detention centres since 2001 was $2.854 billion. And the budget now allocated to detention for the financial period of 2010-14 is $1.0008 billion.
The trauma experienced by asylum seekers before they arrive in Australia is further exacerbated by being placed in these detention centres. The UNHCR regional representative Richard Towle stated that “prolonged detention, particularly in isolated locations, can have severe and detrimental effects on the health and psycho-social well-being of those affected.” Patrick McGorry, mental health specialist and Australian of the Year also conveyed his concern about the detrimental impacts of detention on mental health when he described the detention centres as “factories for producing mental illness and mental disorder”. Furthermore, there is overwhelming evidence that demonstrates the psychological harms that long-term incarceration in Australia’s immigration detention centres has caused, including reports of completed suicide and self-mutilation.

Not only do these problems exist, but they exist for futile reasons. The fact is that most asylum seekers will eventually be released into the Australian community. Dr Zachary Steel, Clinical Psychologist of the Psychiatry Research and Teaching Unit, University of New South Wales stated that despite all the efforts that Australia makes to detain asylum seekers, 85% of people detained in detention centres will become Australian citizens, or at least be released into the community. In the past, 97 per cent of individual applicants from Iraq and 93 per cent from Afghanistan who sought asylum without valid visas in Australia were recognized as genuine refugees. Therefore the financing of detention centres and psychological distress caused are for fruitless reasons.

There are less harmful and cost effective means for addressing asylum seekers. The UNHCR has recommend alternatives that include community based detention arrangements with community supervision and open centres. These community-based alternatives have been implemented internationally and have already been put into practice within Australia’s parole system. The cost of such community care is at a much lesser rate when compared to detention.

Therefore, mandatory detention of asylum seekers is an excessive response that arbitrarily denies people certain human rights. Those who come without documentation are not illegal; they are simply asylum seekers under international law. Australia should fulfill its international legal obligations and protect the human rights of asylum seekers by fully implementing all Convention and Treaty obligations to which Australia is signatory to. No Australian Government should condone the detention of asylum seekers in any form that puts their life, liberty, safety, health or other fundamental human rights at risk. There are humane alternatives available in the community for the care and support of asylum seekers and their children.