An inspection report of Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre (IRC) has found grave concerns, including a dramatic rise in violence and thirteen escapes in one year.

Charity Detention Action said the report highlighted the ‘inhumanity and harm of indefinite detention’. In 2022-23, nearly 50% of people held at Yarl’s Wood had served a full prison sentence but were then detained with no time limit.

In 2022/23 ‘Operation Safeguard’ was initiated to reduce pressures across the prison estate, which led to male prisoners being held at Yarl’s Wood, most of whom were foreign nationals. The Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) found that this had led to an increase in violence and damage to property, in particular altercations between detainees.

Immigration Removal Centres are meant to hold people for a short time before their removal from the country. The report found issues with the lengths of time people were being held at Yarl’s Wood, with the number of people being held for more than two months increasing from 14% to 23% in one year. One detainee had been held in the centre since November 2022, and in the immigration estate as a whole since February 2022.

The report said this had ’caused distress and unrest between detained people, particularly for time served prisoners.’

The IMB used their report to call on the government to introduce an overall time limit for immigration detention.

Detention Action said the increase in length of stays in IRCs comprised a ‘double punishment’, and backed the report’s call on the government to introduce a time limit.