Governing immigration through crime at the street-level. The metamorphosis of an immigration detention centre in Belgium
(2016) Cartografie sociali. Rivista di sociologia e scienze umane — Vol. 1, n° 2, p. 145-166 (2016)
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- Abstract
- Based on ethnographic research in an immigration detention centre in Belgium the author discusses the evolution of the regime to which the de- tainees are subjected. In the official language of the Immigration Office, this evolution is called humanisation of detention. A reconstruction of the changes shows that instead the regime was changed for the well-being of the staff. In fact, immigration detention must be understood as a result of the rise of warehousing practices of the penal state. The staff of the centres has the task of executing the punitive measure of detention. However, this became too burdensome for the staff and so the regime was gradually hu- manised without change in legislation. All levels of staff were implicated in this change. The author argues that the changes were made to account to different actors: inside the Immigration Office accountability was directed to the staff, while externally this process was called humanisation.
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Citations
Crosby, A. (2016). Governing immigration through crime at the street-level. The metamorphosis of an immigration detention centre in Belgium. Cartografie sociali. Rivista di sociologia e scienze umane, 1(2), 145-166. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/248310 (Original work published 2016)