Immigration detention is formally not a punishment, but governments do use it to deter illegal residence. This study examines whether and how immigration detention affects detainees’ decision‐making processes regarding departure, thereby possibly resulting in de facto “specific deterrence.” Semistructured face‐to‐face interviews were conducted in the Netherlands with 81 immigration detainees, and their case files were examined. Evidence is found for a limited, selective deterrence effect at the level of detainee's attitudes: most respondents considered immigration detention a painful and distressing experience, but only a minority—mostly labor migrants without family ties in the Netherlands—developed a preference to return to their country of citizenship in hopes of ending their exposure, including repeated exposure, to the detention. In line with defiance theory, we find that eventual deterrent effects mostly occurred among detainees who also attributed some measure of legitimacy to their detention. Among some detainees, the detention experience resulted in a preference to migrate to a neighboring European country.

Can a prison in the Netherlands, that is neither ‘Dutch’ nor ‘Norwegian’, be ‘legitimate?’ What are the moral challenges? Our study of the controversial Norgerhaven project—a Norwegian prison located in the Netherlands—found that this ‘experiment’ generated one of the most reflexive, ‘deliberative’ prisons we have encountered. Officials involved in the decision assumed that the two jurisdictions were alike in their values. Few were prepared for the differences that arose. This hybrid prison made punishment, the use of authority, and the meanings of fairness, professionalism and discipline unusually explicit as staff negotiated their practices, creating a shift from ‘practical’ to ‘discursive’ consciousness and exposing many of the complexities of liberal penal power.

Ethnographic fieldwork amongst 105 unauthorized migrants in the Netherlands shows that unauthorized migrants suffer from the pains of being unauthorized. These migrants feel punished and are severely hurt by – amongst others – the deprivation of healthy and secure living conditions, social and geographical mobility and citizenship. These migrants’ pains are caused by current restrictive migration controls, something the Dutch authorities could and should be aware of given previous research that provides similar insights. While the Dutch authorities do provide – the legally required – provisions for unauthorized migrants, we argue on the basis of Hayes’ proximity model that these authorities accept the collateral consequences of (possibly) being subjected to migration controls and purposely inflict these pains on unauthorized migrants. This means that migration control is not only experienced as punishment by those subjected to it, but that it is also intended to punish. The current system of migration control has as such expanded the reach of penal power. This implies that ‘punishment and society’ scholarship should also look beyond the borders of nation-states and criminal laws in order to understand contemporary punishment.

(Beyens & Boone, 2013, 8). In België verblijven deze strafrechtelijk gedetineerden zonder verblijfsrecht samen met gedetineerden met rechtmatig verblijf in eenzelfde inrichting en hebben in beginsel dezelfde rechten en plichten.Onderzoek van Beyens en Boone (2013) naar de ervaringen van gedetineerden en medewerkers met het Belgische detentieregime in de PI Tilburg laat zien dat gedetineerden het verblijf in de PI Tilburg doorgaans als positief ervaren, maar dat de detentiebeleving mede afhankelijk is van individuele kenmerken, zoals detentiefase, taal en verblijfsstatus. Dit geeft aanleiding te veronderstellen dat strafrechtelijk gedetineerden zonder verblijfsrecht het verblijf in detentie anders beleven dan gedetineerden met verblijfsrecht. Gezien het grote aantal gedetineerden zonder verblijfsrecht in de PI Tilburg en de toenemende tendens om gebruik te maken van strafrechtelijke detentie voor migranten zonder verblijfsrecht (Stumpf, 2006 Dit artikel uit Tijdschrift voor Criminologie is gepubliceerd door Boom Juridische uitgevers en is bestemd voor Utrecht University Library (202441)

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The paradoxical merger of humanitarian care and securitization imperatives can be seen not only at external and externalized borders, but also at the internal borders in the Netherlands. Here, humanitarian organizations that sprang up to support migrants without a legal status in response to – and given their disagreement with – the state’s exclusionary migration policies have become involved in migration control. During a gradual and subtle responsibilization process, the Dutch authorities have used specific measures and redirected monetary flows in order to incorporate these organizations into its broader migration control policies. This has resulted in a decrease in the number of support organizations for unauthorized migrants, a reduction in their independence and autonomy, and an increased focus on selection and return. Ethnographic fieldwork amongst unauthorized migrants illustrates the consequences of this exclusionary control. These migrants experience exclusion, selection and enforcement by humanitarian organizations and doubt the trustworthiness of these organizations. This development seems to fit in with the broader trend of European states disarming humanitarian organizations for unauthorized migrants by either responsibilizing or criminalizing them. However, these strategies are not without consequences because they run the risk that unauthorized migrants will further withdraw and turn away from this type of assistance altogether. We use both a humanitarian and a pragmatic perspective to argue that it would make sense for states either to allow organizations to continue their – uncompromised and unconditional – support for unauthorized migrants or to adapt their migration policies in such a way that humanitarian support becomes redundant.

This contribution provides an overview of the extent to which rehabilitation instruments and opportunities are accessible for irregular migrants who are serving a criminal sanction in the Netherlands. It shows that irregular migrants are largely excluded from criminal sanctions that have rehabilitation as a central aim and from rehabilitation opportunities that are provided during the implementation of criminal sanctions. These findings raise questions concerning the legal legitimacy of largely excluding irregular migrants from rehabilitation opportunities and the way in which irregular migrants prepare themselves for their return to society in practice.

This article has three main purposes: (1) To describe an in-prison methodology for measuring the moral quality of life, developed organically out of experience and necessity. It is conducted over an intense but exceptionally brief period of time. (2) To reveal and reflect on our intellectual methodology: how do we describe, think, interpret and theorise about prison life in our work together, especially in a transnational team? (3) Finally, to consider the benefits and challenges of collaboration and intense immersion across national boundaries, in a study of Norgerhaven prison in the Netherlands. We found that our own implicit prison moralities varied significantly, as we worked together to describe a prison that surprised us, and our participants, hugely.