Opinion: In My View - Children in detention

As the system of detention centres currently stands, I do not wish to see children placed in them. An immigration removal centre is not the sort of place we should be putting children. More family-friendly and better designed, better equipped and better staffed facilities would be preferable, but wherever possible, detention for children should not be used.

The effect of being put into such centres varies, but I have heard many reports of it severely affecting the mental health of children who have been incarcerated. The traumatic impact on parents also reflects negatively on their children.

The arrest of families is often very poorly handled. Families speak of loss of possessions (especially bad for children when it is a treasured toy), of families being split, of children going without eating for long periods. In the most recent case in my constituency, my constituent felt her treatment at Yarl's Wood Immigration Detention Centre had actually been quite good - it was the arrest itself that was problematic. She was detained at her home in a dawn raid and she and her son were taken on a long journey to the detention centre, about 200 miles away by road. The son is now deeply worried whenever he sees police or other emergency services personnel. In addition, it has affected his school friends who are not seeking asylum, some of whom asked whether they'd be arrested by the police too.