Logistical violence in the UK’s short-term immigration detention and deportation system

In this paper, I explore the nature, effects, and governance of use of force in the UK’s fully outsourced immigration detainee escorting system. Drawing on material gathered from a long-term mixed-method study, I seek to explain the gap between official figures which show staff rarely physically restrain those in their custody, and the paperwork and processes which anticipate the need for violence at every turn. As I will argue, the information gathered by staff about using force shapes and justifies this form of border control from the number of officers assigned to a deportation, to the site of detention selected, and the treatment of people during custody, transportation, and deportation. These arrangements, in turn, diffuse coercion into and through everyday practices and paperwork. This ‘logistical violence’, which inheres in technical details and data as well as in physical restraint, not only facilitates border control but shields the company from blame by firmly attaching the use of force first to the detained person whose actions demand it and then to the officers who mete it out. In so doing, it hides the coercive nature of this business from view while allowing the company to profit from it.