From detention officer to detention monitor: Reflections on staff experiences of confinement

Abstract

In August 2019, a research workshop at the University of Melbourne brought together academics, practitioners, advocates, people with experience of living and working in confined settings to explore parallels between the spaces and practices of care and control in different places of confinement. A former immigration detention officer, later inspector and monitor of closed environments, joined the discussion. Along with other voices of ‘lived experience’, he offered a unique perspective on working in places where a ‘duty of care’ can mean less about how people should be treated or cared for, and more about guarding oneself and one’s employer against personal and institutional criticism. In the following conversation (with one of the editors of this Special Themed Collection of papers that arose from that workshop) he shares experiences of working in immigration detention, in both operational and oversight roles, and the tensions between the two. He reflects on cultures of suspicion and silence, bearing witness to experiences of violence and suffering, and what it means to be human in conditions of confinement.