By Vicky Taylor

This report, published by the Centre for Criminology at the University of Oxford and Border Criminologies in collaboration with Humans for Rights Network, Captain Support UK and Refugee Legal Support, shows how people have been imprisoned for their arrival on a ‘small boat’ since the Nationality and Borders Act (2022) came into force. It details the process from sea to prison, and explains how this policy is experienced by those affected.

New dta shows that in the first year of implementation (June 2022 – June 2023), 240 people arriving on small boats were charged with ‘illegal arrival’ off small boats. While anyone arriving irregularly can now be arrested for ‘illegal arrival’, this research finds that in practice those prosecuted either: 1. Have an ‘immigration history’ in the UK, including having been identified as being in the country, or having attempted to arrive previously ( for example, through simply having applied for a visa), or, 2. Are identified as steering the dinghy they travelled in as it crossed the Channel.

49 people were also charged with ‘facilitation’ in addition to ‘illegal arrival’ after allegedly being identified as having their ‘hand on the tiller’ at some point during the journey. At least two people were charged with ‘facilitation’ for bringing their children with them on the dinghy. In 2022, 1 person for every 10 boats was arrested for their alleged role in steering. In 2023, this was 1 for every 7 boats. People end up being spotted with their ‘hand on the tiller’ for many reasons, including having boating experience, steering in return for discounted passage, taking it in turns, or being under duress.

Despite the Government’s rhetoric, both offences target people with no role in organised criminal gangs. The vast majority of those convicted of both ‘illegal arrival’ and ‘facilitation’ have ongoing asylum claims. Victims of torture and trafficking, as well as children with ongoing age disputes, have also been prosecuted. Those arrested include people from nationalities with a high asylum grant rate, including people from Sudan, South Sudan, Afghanistan, Iran, Eritrea, and Syria.

Humans for Rights Network has identified 15 age-disputed children who were wrongly treated as adults and charged with these new offences, with 14 spending time in adult prison. These young people have experienced serious psychological and physical harm in adult courts and prisons, raising serious questions around the practices of the Home Office, Border Force, Ministry of Justice, magistrates and Judges, the CPS, defence lawyers, and prison staff.

Oxford, UK: Border Criminologies and the Centre for Criminology at the University of Oxford , 2024. 44p.

By Kamena Dorling and Maddie Harris

Wethersfield airfield, a remote 800-acre site in rural Essex, is the latest location for a large ‘open-prison camp’ in which the government is housing people seeking asylum. Although not described as immigration detention, Wethersfield replicates many of the features found in detention settings, including restrictions on movement, security and surveillance measures, lack of privacy and isolation from the wider community. Opened in July 2023, the camp has already caused profound and irreparable harm to many residents, harm that only intensifies the longer they are kept there. The evidence in this report, drawn from 10 detailed assessments by Helen Bamber Foundation (HBF) clinicians and interviews with and ongoing support provided to 140 individuals by Humans for Rights Network (HFRN), makes clear that being held in Wethersfield is already causing significant harm to those placed there. This includes survivors of torture and trafficking, those with severe mental health issues, and children, despite Home Office guidance making clear that these groups should not be placed there. Residents have displayed symptoms of worsening mental health following transfer to Wethersfield, including low mood, loneliness, flashbacks, reduced appetite, weight loss, feelings of despair and difficulty sleeping, and a worsening in symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Men held there have reported anxiety and depression, suicidal ideation, intense desperation and fear, self-harm and acute sleep deprivation. The very features of Wethersfield, and similar sites such as Napier Barracks, cause significant mental distress. These include: y Isolation: Wethersfield’s remote location and restricted access exacerbates feelings of detachment from society, while lack of adequate facilities heighten tensions in the site as more men are placed there. y Detention-like setting: The camp’s resemblance to a prison, with barbed wire and surveillance, triggers traumatic experiences among residents, many of whom have had experiences of other ‘camps’, in Egypt and Libya for example. y Lack of privacy and shared facilities: Overcrowded living conditions significantly impact residents’ mental health, and increase the risk of communicable diseases spreading. y Inadequate healthcare: Healthcare services are insufficient, with concerns about the lack of trauma-focused support and barriers to accessing care. The ‘screening process’ for deciding who should be placed in Wethersfield is fundamentally flawed. In just the first three months of it being open, nearly a quarter of those placed there were moved out again because they did not meet the ‘suitability criteria’. HFRN has identified 11 children wrongly treated as adults and placed at serious risk of harm there. With over 120,000 people who have been waiting for over six months for a decision on their asylum claim, it is unclear how long the men will be kept there and what is happening with their cases, contributing to an ongoing sense of uncertainty and anxiety. No legal advice surgeries are being provided by the government in Wethersfield, and charities offering support are being denied access. Not only does keeping people in open-prison camps like Wethersfield not allow for their recovery, it does the exact opposite. It causes additional pain and trauma to people who have already experienced conflict, oppression, abuse, torture and trafficking. The Home Office intends to extend the use of the site for a further three years – this report highlights Wethersfield airfield, a remote 800-acre site in rural Essex, is the latest location for a large ‘open-prison camp’ in which the government is housing people seeking asylum. Although not described as immigration detention, Wethersfield replicates many of the features found in detention settings, including restrictions on movement, security and surveillance measures, lack of privacy and isolation from the wider community. Opened in July 2023, the camp has already caused profound and irreparable harm to many residents, harm that only intensifies the longer they are kept there. The evidence in this report, drawn from 10 detailed assessments by Helen Bamber Foundation (HBF) clinicians and interviews with and ongoing support provided to 140 individuals by Humans for Rights Network (HFRN), makes clear that being held in Wethersfield is already causing significant harm to those placed there. This includes survivors of torture and trafficking, those with severe mental health issues, and children, despite Home Office guidance making clear that these groups should not be placed there. Residents have displayed symptoms of worsening mental health following transfer to Wethersfield, including low mood, loneliness, flashbacks, reduced appetite, weight loss, feelings of despair and difficulty sleeping, and a worsening in symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Men held there have reported anxiety and depression, suicidal ideation, intense desperation and fear, self-harm and acute sleep deprivation. The very features of Wethersfield, and similar sites such as Napier Barracks, cause significant mental distress. These include: y Isolation: Wethersfield’s remote location and restricted access exacerbates feelings of detachment from society, while lack of adequate facilities heighten tensions in the site as more men are placed there. y Detention-like setting: The camp’s resemblance to a prison, with barbed wire and surveillance, triggers traumatic experiences among residents, many of whom have had experiences of other ‘camps’, in Egypt and Libya for example. y Lack of privacy and shared facilities: Overcrowded living conditions significantly impact residents’ mental health, and increase the risk of communicable diseases spreading. y Inadequate healthcare: Healthcare services are insufficient, with concerns about the lack of trauma focused support and barriers to accessing care. The ‘screening process’ for deciding who should be placed in Wethersfield is fundamentally flawed. In just the first three months of it being open, nearly a quarter of those placed there were moved out again because they did not meet the ‘suitability criteria’. HFRN has identified 11 children wrongly treated as adults and placed at serious risk of harm there. With over 120,000 people who have been waiting for over six months for a decision on their asylum claim, it is unclear how long the men will be kept there and what is happening with their cases, contributing to an ongoing sense of uncertainty and anxiety. No legal advice surgeries are being provided by the government in Wethersfield, and charities offering support are being denied access. Not only does keeping people in open-prison camps like Wethersfield not allow for their recovery, it does the exact opposite. It causes additional pain and trauma to people who have already experienced conflict, oppression, abuse, torture and trafficking. The Home Office intends to extend the use of the site for a further three years – this report highlights why Wethersfield airfield, a remote 800-acre site in rural Essex, is the latest location for a large ‘open-prison camp’ in which the government is housing people seeking asylum. Although not described as immigration detention, Wethersfield replicates many of the features found in detention settings, including restrictions on movement, security and surveillance measures, lack of privacy and isolation from the wider community. Opened in July 2023, the camp has already caused profound and irreparable harm to many residents, harm that only intensifies the longer they are kept there. The evidence in this report, drawn from 10 detailed assessments by Helen Bamber Foundation (HBF) clinicians and interviews with and ongoing support provided to 140 individuals by Humans for Rights Network (HFRN), makes clear that being held in Wethersfield is already causing significant harm to those placed there. This includes survivors of torture and trafficking, those with severe mental health issues, and children, despite Home Office guidance making clear that these groups should not be placed there. Residents have displayed symptoms of worsening mental health following transfer to Wethersfield, including low mood, loneliness, flashbacks, reduced appetite, weight loss, feelings of despair and difficulty sleeping, and a worsening in symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Men held there have reported anxiety and depression, suicidal ideation, intense desperation and fear, self-harm and acute sleep deprivation. The very features of Wethersfield, and similar sites such as Napier Barracks, cause significant mental distress. These include: y Isolation: Wethersfield’s remote location and restricted access exacerbates feelings of detachment from society, while lack of adequate facilities heighten tensions in the site as more men are placed there. y Detention-like setting: The camp’s resemblance to a prison, with barbed wire and surveillance, triggers traumatic experiences among residents, many of whom have had experiences of other ‘camps’, in Egypt and Libya for example. y Lack of privacy and shared facilities: Overcrowded living conditions significantly impact residents’ mental health, and increase the risk of communicable diseases spreading. y Inadequate healthcare: Healthcare services are insufficient, with concerns about the lack of traumafocused support and barriers to accessing care. The ‘screening process’ for deciding who should be placed in Wethersfield is fundamentally flawed. In just the first three months of it being open, nearly a quarter of those placed there were moved out again because they did not meet the ‘suitability criteria’. HFRN has identified 11 children wrongly treated as adults and placed at serious risk of harm there. With over 120,000 people who have been waiting for over six months for a decision on their asylum claim, it is unclear how long the men will be kept there and what is happening with their cases, contributing to an ongoing sense of uncertainty and anxiety. No legal advice surgeries are being provided by the government in Wethersfield, and charities offering support are being denied access. Not only does keeping people in open-prison camps like Wethersfield not allow for their recovery, it does the exact opposite. It causes additional pain and trauma to people who have already experienced conflict, oppression, abuse, torture and trafficking. The Home Office intends to extend the use of the site for a further three years – this report highlights why this must not happen and the Home Secretary should instead prioritise closing the site as a matter of urgency. why this must not happen and the Home Secretary should instead prioritise closing the site as a matter of urgency.

London: Helen Bamber Foundation and Human for Rights Network , 2023. 22p.

By Anna Kotova with Rachel Cordle

This report reviews key research on intergenerational offending, defined as the observed phenomenon whereby children with a parent or parents who offend, go on to offend themselves. It focuses on questions such as whether any differences between maternal and paternal offending exist, differential impacts according to the child’s gender, and evidence of interventions to reduce intergenerational offending. Key findings are: • There is a strong correlation between parental offending and child offending, established across numerous longitudinal studies across different jurisdictions. • There is clear evidence to suggest that children with a parent in prison are at risk of poor outcomes (in terms of mental health, behaviour, wellbeing etc.). However, the extent to which parental imprisonment is a specific cause of these poorer outcomes is unclear (i.e., poor outcomes may result from other factors such as socio-economic disadvantage). • There are complex reasons why children with an offending parent are at higher risk of offending. These encompass both intrafamilial (e.g. parental supervision of the child, addiction) and socio-economic (e.g., economic deprivation) factors, meaning a multi-faceted approach is needed. • Recent research has found the effect of parental offending on children differs according to the gender of parents and children. Having a convicted mother was linked to an increased risk of a daughter offending, but having a convicted father was not linked to an increased risk of the daughter offending. However, the number of girls who offend is generally small, which might explain this finding, as noted by the authors. There was a strong link between having a convicted father and boys’ offending, and the same trend in the context of boys and convicted mothers. However, in-depth analysis suggests a direct link between fathers’ offending and their sons’ offending, whereas the link between mothers and sons is not direct and is instead mediated via factors such as the father’s drug-taking. • Longer periods of parental imprisonment are associated with an increased risk of the child offending. • Type of offence is an additional factor. The children of people who commit violent offences are more likely to commit violent offences also. • There are very few external evaluations of interventions aimed at reducing intergenerational offending. Equally, there appears to be very few interventions that explicitly state that an aim of the intervention is to reduce intergenerational offending. • Several protective factors exist which are linked to improved child outcomes. For example, the resident carer coping well is one such factor, as is the child’s mental wellbeing and having a forum in which they can express their needs and emotions.

London: UK Ministry of Justice, 2025. 33p.

By Center for Neighborhood Engaged Research & Science

Gun violence—a key driver of premature death and racial disparities in life expectancy in the US—remains especially damaging to Chicagoans, who face consistently higher per capita rates of gun violence than residents of other large US cities. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In response to this persistent challenge, Metropolitan Peace Initiatives (MPI), a division of Metropolitan Family Services, convened eight community-based organizations in Chicago in 2017 to form a CVI coalition called Communities Partnering 4 Peace (CP4P). The coalition’s goal is to reduce gun violence stemming from interpersonal and group conflicts among the individuals most likely to be involved. To achieve this, CP4P organizations provide participants with conflict mediation and deescalation, mentorship, case management, and referrals to direct services, including legal advocacy, employment support, educational opportunities, and trauma-informed behavioral health counseling. The Center for Neighborhood Engaged Research and Science (CORNERS) served as CP4P’s research partner to evaluate the coalition’s violence reduction efforts. CORNERS used an engaged research process to co-design a multi-method evaluation in partnership with MPI and CP4P leadership. This report builds on previous interim reports on the coalition’s individual and communitylevel impact. CORNERS’ research and evaluation strategy is focused on assessing the following three key aspects related to CP4P’s reach and impact: The ability of CP4P to reach and provide services to individuals most acutely impacted by and involved in gun violence. 1. The impact of CP4P services on individual-level participant outcomes, including involvement in gun violence and service use. 2. CP4P’s potential impact on gun violence at the community-level. 3. To answer these questions, CORNERS built a multi-method research design that captures the experiences and perspectives of CP4P participants through focus groups, periodic surveys, and in-depth interviews. CORNERS also conducted quasi-experimental statistical analyses that demonstrate CP4P’s impact on gunshot victimization among its participants and within its coverage area.

Ebanston, IL: Center for Neighborhood Engaged Research & Science (CORNERS), 2023. 32p.

By Center for Neighborhood Engaged Research & Science (CORNERS)

Communities Partnering 4 Peace (CP4P) is an innovative consortium of Chicago community violence intervention (CVI) organizations coordinating their activities towards a common goal: reducing gunshot victimization among individuals who are most likely to be involved in gun violence, neighborhood disputes, and group conflicts. CP4P launched in 2017 after a severe uptick in homicides in 2016. Since then, the collaboration has expanded to include 14 organizations covering 27 different community areas. CP4P’s model relies on street outreach workers to strengthen relationships throughout their respective communities and serve as front-line violence preventionists who mediate gang and interpersonal conflicts, monitor emergent activities and areas for community violence, and mentor those at highest risk of violence involvement. CP4P partner organizations also provide participants with direct services including legal advocacy, employment support, educational opportunities, housing assistance, and trauma-informed behavioral health counseling. Although CVI initiatives such as CP4P direct much of their programmatic efforts toward individuals, CVI organizations also intend to impact neighborhood levels of gun violence by penetrating social networks and group conflicts most involved [1], [2]. The need for both individual and neighborhood-level violence reduction efforts only increased during the startling surge in gun violence that emerged alongside the COVID-19 pandemic. CP4P’s innovative model was developed prior to these dual pandemics and was able to quickly respond and adapt its existing infrastructure in response to increased demand [3]. This research brief summarizes the results of a quasi-experimental evaluation of CP4P’s impact on neighborhood-level rates of homicides and nonfatal shootings from the start of the program to December 2021.

Evanston, IL: Corners (The Center for Neighborhood Engaged Research and Science), 2023. 7p