Suicidality in immigration detention is characterised as an issue which can be mitigated by vulnerability-based risk assessments and mental health counselling. Yet, in spite of reforms to the latter, suicides and self-injury remain consistently high. In this article, I address the question: what role does immigration detention play in the production of suicidality, and how does this intersect with protections afforded under human rights law on the Right to Life? A significant body of research has been conducted on the harmful impacts of detention, particularly for persons deemed vulnerable. However, unlike previous work which focuses on material conditions and human rights breaches in the detention regime, I analyse the experience of ‘being detained’ in of itself. Analysis is based on extant testimonial data from people detained within immigration removal centres across the UK. I find that distress and associated self-injurious behaviours are linked to experiences of deportability, absence of carceral legitimacy, and unbelonging. This suggests that suicide prevention initiatives which focus on pre-existing mental illness and improved conditions in detention overlook the relevance of the context in which the suicidality occurs. Rather, approaching suicide in this way serves to individualise and pathologizeadverse reactions to border control, while obscuring the state’s role in producing the harms same they ostensibly aim to prevent. These findings have significance both for widening the framing of suicide beyond biomedical paradigms, and reconceptualising the relationship between suicide and protection of the Right to Life.
