Life in the Shadow Carceral State: Surveillance and Control of Refugees in Australia

Anthea Vogl,Elyse Methven

doi:10.5204/ijcjsd.1690

Abstract

This article critically examines techniques employed by the Australian state to expand its control of refugees and asylum seekers living in Australia. In particular, it analyses the operation of Australia’s unique Asylum Seeker Code of Behaviour, which asylum seekers who arrive by boat must sign in order to be released from mandatory immigration detention, with reference to an original dataset of allegations made under the Code. We argue that the Code and the regime of visa cancellation and re-detention powers of which it forms a part are manifestations of what Beckett and Murakawa call the ‘shadow carceral state’, whereby punitive state power is extended beyond prison walls through the blurring of civil, administrative and criminal legal authority. The Code contributes to Australia’s apparatus of refugee deterrence by adding to it a brutal system of surveillance, visa cancellation and denial of services for asylum seekers living in the community.

Highlights

In December 2013, Scott Morrison, Australia’s Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, announced that asylum seekers living in the community would be subject to a new Code of Behaviour (Morrison 2013)
Australia has attracted an international reputation for its harsh policies towards asylum seekers and has become a world leader in border externalisation practices aimed at preventing their arrival
Border control practices that operate before and after arrival reflect the external and internal manifestations of the Australian border. Openly coercive practices, such as maritime interdiction, mandatory and offshore detention and deportation, are the most visible and notorious aspects of Australia’s deterrence apparatus, new forms of internal border enforcement function to punish and exclude asylum seekers living in the community before their formal application is determined, as well as to compel compliance with migration management goals (Weber and Pickering 2014)

Summary

Introduction

In December 2013, Scott Morrison, Australia’s Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, announced that asylum seekers living in the community would be subject to a new Code of Behaviour (Morrison 2013). These expectations purport to establish ‘behavioural standards expected by the Australian community’ (Department of Immigration and Border Protection 2015: 3), but somewhat paradoxically, apply exclusively to asylum seekers and exceed the content of the criminal (and for that matter, civil) law They exemplify how the shadow carceral state adopts and expands the scope of already ‘fuzzy definitions of crime’ (Beckett and Murakawa 2012: 222) (or in the Code’s case, ‘breaches’), and transfers the policing and punishment of supposed behavioural breaches to administrative and executive realms of governance. The blurring of criminal and administrative legal processes increases the ability of the state to punish asylum seekers by undermining ‘the capacity of immigrants to assert their rights and avoid punishment in both settings’ (Beckett and Murakawa 2012: 232)

Part II: Visa Cancellation Data and the Shadow Carceral State in Action

Findings

Conclusion