ABSTRACT
In the remarkable treatise, Intimate Economies of Immigration Detention: Critical perspectives, authors from around the world, each one an expert in his or her own right, have considered various roles and responsibilities that public, private and non-profit actors assume in the provision of immigration detention. Both for-profit and non-profit organisations own and operate detention facilities at considerable corporate and personal gain. Civil detention operates at the intersection of national boundaries and interpersonal relationships, somewhat perverse personal and profitable relationships. Civil detention, as currently practiced in the United States and other countries, is a blend of civil law and criminal law enforcement policy and practice, fueling and further fostering the impact of anomie, a moral ambiguity within and between those born in that country and elsewhere. The governance of a civil, civil system would be embedded with evidence-based practices and not based upon deterrence-based detention policies.
