Immigration detention and juxtaposed border controls on the French north coast

Abstract

In this article, I build on criminological accounts of immigration detention by examining British short-term holding facilities located on French territory in the ports of Calais and Dunkerque and the policies and treaties that govern them. For a number of reasons, including barriers to research access, their legal complexity, and their modest size and nature, these institutions have received little empirical or theoretical scrutiny. Yet, as I shall demonstrate through an analysis of a range of published material from Parliamentary debates, government and non-governmental agencies, the media and the Internet, as well as observations of the sites themselves and figures about them, these banal, bureaucratic sites of temporary custody play an important role in upholding the more familiar border spectacle of the region.