Territorial Policing and the 'hostile environment' in Calais - from policy to practice (original) (raw)

2018, Justice, Power and Resistance

This article looks at the ‘hostile environment’ principle in the context of UK government policies since the 1971 Immigration Act focusing largely on the more recent expansion of immigration policing across Europe. The author draws both on her work at the Institute of Race Relations, researching the prosecution of humanitarians under anti-smuggling and anti-trafficking laws and her experience as a volunteer at Calais. The article is based on six interviews conducted in June 2017 with volunteers from Refugee Community Kitchen, Refugee Youth Service, L’Auberge des Migrants and the Refugee Rights Data Project. She establishes that, ever since the Le Touquet agreement when the British border was extended to Calais and the French border to Kent, there has been a convergence between French and British border policing. The violence at Calais of the CRS, also known as the riot police, is discussed, with the suggestion that intimidatory policing is not arbitrary but flows from the logic of territorial policing. The policing of aid distribution points within the context of a deliberate policy of shrinking the space for humanitarian activism is discussed, with regular harassment and identity checks of refugees and volunteers alike, including the throwing of tear gas into the food distribution lines, described. The author stresses that hostile environment policies linked to territorial policing form a deliberate means of intimidation and oppression of displaced populations whose very presence is deemed illegitimate.

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