42  Ioanna Kotsioni j Detention of Migrants and Asylum-Seekers To begin with definitions: immigration detention is defined by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as “the deprivation of liberty or confinement in a closed place which an asylum-seeker is not permitted to leave at will, including, though not limited to, prisons or purpose-built detention, closed reception or holding centres or facilities.”2 The definition clarifies that “[t]he place of detention may be administered either by public authorities or private contractors; the confinement may be authorised by an administrative or judicial procedure, or the person may have been confined with or without ‘lawful’ authority”.3 This definition reflects the diversity of detention practices and the kind of situations asylum-seekers and migrants are placed within. It also points to how migrants may be detained for several reasons: for having entered the territory of a State without possessing the necessary travel documents, for identification and screening purposes, or as a prelude to deportation. Furthermore, the definition reflects the fact that individuals under administrative detention may be offered less procedural protection compared with that available in the criminal justice system, primarily because confinement may be ordered with an administrative act and without procedural guarantees and possibilities for effective remedy.4 In countries such as Australia and the United Kingdom (UK), the law does not even impose an upper limit on the length of administrative detention, and as a result, asylum-seekers in Australia have been detained for periods as long as seven years.5 Immigration detention is predominantly imposed as an administrative measure, and misleading terminology is often used to describe the practice (e.g. “guesthouses” in Turkey and “welcome centres” in Italy).6 Most examples of detention, however, resemble incarceration on penal grounds. Freedom of movement is imposed in prison-like facilities or even in regular prisons. Handcuffs are often used during transfers, even in hospitals and clinics; facilities are controlled by uniformed staff, such as police, army, or private security; and detention spaces are monitored by surveillance cameras. In many cases, migrants and asylum-seekers are detained in facilities that do not even meet the standards of regular prisons, including inadequate provision for keeping clean, absence of recreational space, and are inappropriate for long-term accommodation, such as containers, storage buildings, old army barracks, and police station cells. In recent years, the policy of immigration detention has come under scrutiny on humanitarian, on legal, and (increasingly) on practical grounds.7 Evidence from the work of non-governmental organisations and researchers stress the highly 2 UNHCR, Detention Guidelines: Guidelines on the Applicable Criteria and Standards Relating to the Detention of Asylum-Seekers and Alternatives to Detention, Geneva, UNHCR, 2012, 9, para. 5, available at: http:// www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/503489533b8.html (last visited 22 Feb. 2016). 3 Ibid., 9, para. 6. 4 I. Majcher, “Crimmigation” in the European Union through the Lens of Immigration Detention, Global Detention Project Working Paper No. 6, Geneva, Global Migration Centre, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, 2013, available at: http://www.globaldetentionproject.org/filead min/publications/Crimmigration_EU_final.pdf (last visited 22 Feb. 2016). 5 Steel et al., “Global Protection and the Health Impact of Migration Interception”. 6 M. Flynn, “Be Careful What you Wish for”, Forced Migration Review, 44, 2013, 22–23. 7 A. Edwards, “Detention under Scrutiny”, Forced Migration Review, 44, 2013, 4–6.