Elizabeth Stanley

The detention of asylum seekers in the UK Representing risk, managing the dangerous

Media and political representations of asylum seekers and refugees have been infused with language denoting images of ‘danger’, ‘criminality’ and ‘risk’. Despite attempts to provide for those seeking asylum in the UK, those in need have frequently been stigmatized and criminalized. Policies and practices, intended to respond to those fleeing economic hardship or political persecution, have been guided by such depictions. This article illustrates the use of detention as a mechanism for purportedly securing the containment and removal of ‘illegals’. While the use of detention may be seen as an attempt to deter ‘undeserving’ asylum seekers from seeking sanctuary in the UK, this article argues that this practice is, in effect, a fundamentally punitive method to assuage public fears concerning supposed ‘risk’ and potential dangers to ‘security’.

What Next? The Aftermath of Organised Truth Telling

Two days later, on 26 April 1998, Gerardi was battered to death. With violations of human rights often systematic and institutionalised, engaging state personnel and agencies in their implementation and bolstered by official policy and rhetoric, the need to find a practice to deal with the aftermath en masse has led many states to undertake organised forms of truth telling. Such commissions of inquiry, or truth commissions, are framed by a belief that to face the past by acknowledging experiences of brutality allows a nation to disengage from collective violence and to make it plain that human rights

From Care to Custody: Trajectories of Children in Post-War New Zealand:

This article considers the trajectory of children from state care to imprisonment in relation to 105 New Zealanders who spent time in residential care between the 1950s and 1990s. Following previous research, the article demonstrates how children in state care are far more likely to progress into prisons as a result of maltreatment, multiple care placements, damaging residential cultures, social disadvantages and psychological harms, as well as differential treatment in the criminal justice system. This New Zealand research also shows how the interconnected and long-standing processes of victimization and criminalization increase the likelihood of a child transitioning from care to custody.

The road to hell: State violence against children in postwar New Zealand

In this important book Elizabeth Stanley tells the stories of 105 survivors of state care. The participants in her research spent time as state wards when they were children and/or young people. The book’s emphasis is on the state run, or state funded, institutions which were in existence after the second world war until the end of the twentieth century, when deinstitutionalisation took effect. Access to participants was gained through a law firm who represented the participants’ claims against the state for abuse they suffered in state care. Stanley notes some limitations with the method of accessing participants. It has potentially skewed the representation of survivors: the majority of participants were men and more than half identified as European/Pákehá. While significant numbers of women and nonEuropean/Pákehá were in care during this time period men and European/Pákehá were the majority of claimants. Alongside the demographic bias there was a bias of experience as all the participants in Stanley’s book had taken legal action against the state, this was not balanced with other experiences which may have been positive.

Identities, Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa: Some International Concerns

This chapter examines a range of human rights concerns raised by issues relating to truth, reconciliation and identities in a global context. After covering the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in South Africa in some depth, this chapter analyses the TRC in order to illustrate the argument that globalization and identities are central to debates on transitional democracies, but relates the ideas and dilemmas raised into a broader field. Indeed, most of the issues highlighted about the use of truth-finding, and its consequences for identities, have a direct bearing on debates about globalization, migration and the movement of peoples, inter- and intra-state violence, social justice issues, human rights and critical theory. In this chapter ‘identities’ are framed by how individuals or collective groups perceive, and make sense of their own individuality, based on how they make sense of their ‘selves’, how they make sense of others and, of course, their reaction to how they are perceived by others.

Expanding crimmigration: The detention and deportation of New Zealanders from Australia

The significant concept of ‘crimmigration’ has evolved to explain how criminal and immigration laws have begun to merge, expanding state powers to surveil, control and punish. States use crimmigration processes to reinforce cultural, political and moral boundaries. In doing so, states frequently displace principles of punishment or rights in favour of promoting compliance, security or belonging. In relation to the case of New Zealanders detained–deported from Australia, this article illustrates new forms of crimmigration. First, crimmigration is expanding in a context of neoliberal responsibilization. Given the gradual removal of economic supports or political inclusion, ‘non-citizens’ share a deeply precarious space, and more groups are being made ‘at risk’ of crimmigration interventions. Once likely to focus upon certain populations, especially on ‘race’ or nationality grounds, crimmigration now engages all ‘non-citizens’. Second, crimmigration has expanded to include pre-emption – ‘non-citizens’ are targeted not just on account of their criminal behaviours but also their perceived associations, ‘risky’ behaviours or suspicious associations. Finally, and third, crimmigration strategies have expanded across borders, in ways that fundamentally distort established legal principles on the ever-shifting grounds of security. The contagion of crimmigration creates multiple punishments for ‘non-citizens’ that far surpass the nature of their offending or their ‘risk’ to society.

Exacerbating risks and diminishing rights for ‘at-risk’ prisoners:

At-Risk Units (ARUs) are dedicated facilities established in New Zealand prisons to assist those considered to be ‘at risk’ of self-harm or suicide. Their remit is ostensibly care-based and rights-conscious, with authorities noting that ARUs preserve the ‘right to life’. Drawing upon research within two correctional sites, alongside analysis of recent documents from oversight bodies and courts, this article considers ARU operations. It is argued that, all too often, ARUs have undermined humane practices towards suicidal or ‘at-risk’ prisoners. Four problems are apparent: (1) ARUs are misused and overused in such a way that secure punishment, rather than care, is prioritized; (2) within a context of ‘lesser eligibility’, ARUs operationalize degrading conditions and treatments towards prisoners; (3) humane treatments are further diminished by a correctional approach to prioritize legal or bureaucratic compliance; and (4) authorities avoid institutional sanction for prisoner harms or deaths, particularly through an emphasis on personal responsibilization or blame. The end-result is that ARUs are regularly operationalized in ways that exacerbate risks and diminish rights for prisoners. A question remains about their fundamental use as an appropriate response to those who suffer mental health distress within penal environments.

Private prisons and the management of scandal

In 2009, the Corrections (Contract Management of Prisons) Amendment Act re-implemented prison privatisation in New Zealand (NZ). Subsequently, ‘Mt Eden’, a public prison, was contracted to Serco and a second prison, ‘Wiri’, was built under contract to the same company. Despite glowing performance reports, Serco’s reputation was significantly damaged when cell-phone video capturing Mt Eden prisoners engaged in fights, in full view of prison officers and CCTV, was uploaded to YouTube in July 2015. An unprecedented stream of media revelations about prisoner mistreatment, corruption and serious human rights violations followed, prompting the Department of Corrections to seize control of the prison. This article examines the potential of this human rights based scandal to challenge the legitimacy of private prisons in NZ. Where previously, prison legitimacy largely revolved around representations of managerialism, security and the maintenance of austere conditions, the revelations at Mt Eden highlighted a moment when penal legitimacy fractured for being too severe and non-humanitarian. Drawing upon analysis of media articles (n = 648) over seven years (2009–2016) from three major sources (the New Zealand Herald, Stuff News and Radio NZ), the article demonstrates how journalists quickly reverted to traditional discursive frames on imprisonment. Representing the crisis as an unfortunate aberration that could be managed through government controls, mainstream media helped to consolidate and ultimately strengthen the legitimacy of the prison in NZ.

Challenging Māori Imprisonment and Human Rights Ritualism

United Nations’ (UN) reports have consistently shown concern over the high levels of incarceration of Māori. Drawing upon documentary analysis and interviews with Māori engaged in human rights and imprisonment work, this chapter shows how the New Zealand state manages its international human rights engagements in terms of ritualism and selective endorsement. Nonetheless, Māori engagement with the UN, and especially with Indigenous rights, remain vital in the challenge to discriminatory criminal justice system practices and to incarceration. This must be dovetailed with actions to subvert ritualism, by imagining new worlds beyond the prison, and to consolidate social, economic and cultural justice for Māori.

Human Rights and Incarceration

This chapter details how human rights are established, debated, monitored and eroded, in relation to places of incarceration. It sets out the international landscape that may encourage or shame states into human rights conscious activity. It demonstrates how the rights of incarcerated people are continually eroded by state power relations, criminalization practices, cultures of managerialism, and legal processes. Finally, it reflects upon the necessity of reaching beyond legal and institutional responses, towards new forms of decolonizing and feminist social justice. It asserts that human rights values are crucial in working towards the abolition of imprisonment and other forms of incarceration.