Newcastle project finds community better than detention for asylum claims

The Derwentside Immigration Removal Centre replaced Yarl's Wood as the UK's only unit dedicated for women

A pilot project funded by the Home Office has found it is more humane and less expensive to support asylum seekers in the community rather than in detention centres.

Refugee charity, Action Foundation, supported 20 women in a community setting in Newcastle.

It found the women experienced more stability and better health.

Most had previously been detained in Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre.

In November 2021, a new female-only Immigration Removal Centre opened near Consett in County Durham to house 80 women.

Former detention centre detainee Agnes Tanoh said locking women up "broke families"

The Derwentside centre has attracted criticism from various campaign groups including Durham People's Assembly, Abolish Detention and No To Hassockfield, which says the women housed there should be allowed to live in the community.

Agnes Tanoh, a former detainee at Yarl's Wood and now a campaigner against the Derwentside centre, said: "I think the best way is to put people in the community, to welcome people who are in need, who have fled persecution."

Action Foundation chief executive Duncan McAuley said the results of the project "clearly demonstrated that these women would be better served in a community setting".

The evaluation also found the cost of keeping people in the community could be less than half the cost per participant per night than holding an individual in detention.

Duncan McAuley said it was more humane to help women in the community rather than lock them up

Mr McAuley said: "While we recognise the need for some capacity in Immigration Removal Centres, it is shocking to see the Home Office investing millions of pounds in a new facility on our doorstep at Derwentside.

"Instead, we would love to see taxpayers' money invested in alternatives, avoiding the huge personal cost to the individuals themselves.

"Why spend millions of pounds building and running a centre 15 miles down the road when we've demonstrated a cheaper, more humane alternative based in local communities?"

Owen Temple from No To Hassockfield said: "I think it demonstrates what civilised countries already know that you don't need to lock people up to run an effective immigration system to be far more humane and save money so I can see no justification for it, the only thing one can think that drives it is politics."

'Broken asylum system'

Derwentside also holds women who do not have legal status to remain in the UK but are appealing against the decision, and Action Foundation is calling for alternatives to detention for them.

The Home Office said detentions were taken on a case-by-case basis and should be "for the shortest period necessary".

A Home Office spokesperson said: "Derwentside IRC will accommodate those who have been to found to have no right to remain in the UK and foreign national offenders while we prepare to remove them.

"Through our New Plan for Immigration we are fixing the broken asylum and immigration system to make it firm on those who seek to abuse it and fair on those most in need of our support."

The Refugee and Migrant Advisory Service is also carrying out a pilot project for the Home Office supporting both men and women in the community which will run until June.

Both pilots will be considered by the Home Office to inform the "future approach" to "alternatives to detention".