Unless you are what I call an asylum anorak, with abnormally detailed knowledge of the daunting complexities of the UK asylum system, then the existence of Immigration Removal Centres may very well have passed you by. Or maybe you’ve seen a story in the paper about escaped detainees, a disturbance, or a report about conditions inside. But the odds are I’m losing you already. 

About 30,000 people a year are detained in 10 Immigration Removal Centres dotted around the UK. The majority are asylum seekers, though this is a term which has acquired such negative connotations that the Independent Asylum Commission recently recommended that more rational discussion would be likely if we used the phrase ‘people seeking sanctuary’ instead. There are also a large number of foreign nationals who have completed prison sentences and are likely to be deported.

Immigration detention is not part of the criminal justice system – there is no crime, or if there was, time has been done for it already, and there is no trial or sentence. It’s an administrative process, part of the immigration and asylum system. Detention is indefinite in length; it may last a few days or a few years, generally it’s a few months.  

Not so long, you might think. But at Music In Detention, these are important facts, because they overwhelmingly affect the experience of detention, and our central concern is what it’s like for detainees. If you commit a crime and get sent to prison for it, you probably understand why you are there and you certainly know how long you’ll be there. Not that it’s easy, but you can work to settle your mind to it. If you are locked up but didn’t commit a crime, and don’t know how long you’ll be there, or what might become of you when you leave, on top of which you’ve probably had a history which is distressing or traumatic or violent or all of these, then it wouldn’t be surprising if you were anxious, stressed, depressed, self-harming or suicidal.  

I’m not making a political point here, but a professional one. Music In Detention does music with people in tough circumstances, and, as with any vulnerable client group, it makes a difference to know about the setting and the likely frame of mind of the people you are working with.

But why do it, and especially, why music? Well, we start with a conviction about human rights and human needs. Music is universal; it is part of our identity, it defines us; it brings people together, it makes us joyful and reflective and sad; in other words, it makes us human. In which case, everyone should be able to have a go, including immigration detainees, arguably the most marginalised group in the UK.  

Music also feels especially suitable for the detention setting.  It’s accessible - most people can do something pretty useful with a drum with a little coaching and encouragement. It largely avoids the use of language, a practical boon when the number of mother tongues in a group would challenge a Hackney schoolteacher, but more to the point a powerful way to set up a direct line to the emotions. It is thus a fantastic tool for self-expression and communication, the staple ingredients of the MID menu. In other words, when I make music, I can release some emotion, make a connection with other people, feel more human – like a person, not a case.  

Here are some comments and reactions from immigration detainees:

People here are going through mental torture, you know what I mean, physical problems, spiritual problems. It is only these kinds of programmes that can get people’s minds down. Talking about self-harm and stuff, if you attend workshops like this, you rarely think about things like that. It gives you a freedom that you can still be happy. Ah, so I can still be happy for one minute, it means I can be happy for two minutes. Before you know what is happening, you change your thinking. It can go a long way to help.

There you are thinking more broader than before. You see that you are somebody who can do something. I’m productive and perhaps I can do something in society. It’s not only here, I can go now with it outside. Yeah, I am someone who can do something in society, and that's a good thing.

For me, the workshop is a lifetime experience that I will never really forget. If I feel sad – probably it could be a couple of weeks I feel sad – I will try to relax myself, I will try to reflect on things that have made me happy. These are the things you would like to reflect on. You really remember things like the way you danced, the way you played drums. You can set your mind off from what you are thinking about, about a particular situation and particular time. It goes a long way.

We are just frustrated here, you know. Today we forgot, at this moment with the music we forgot all. Sometimes it is very hard. We wish you can stay. When you come back?

Overall, the evidence from independent evaluation of our work is that it relieves stress and depression, aids self-expression through creativity, validates the individual by recognising his (and it usually is his) cultural identity, develops social networks between detainees, improves interactions between staff and detainees (especially when the staff join in), and helps create a more relaxed atmosphere in the centre, reducing tension between detainees from different backgrounds and between detainees and staff. Not bad for a day’s work. The idea of a ‘third space’, in which detainees and staff can reclaim or retain a sense of personal identity, and interact as human beings rather than as (as it were) prisoners and screws, seems from our experience a helpful way to understand how music can work in a closed institution.

So what do we do?  We go into the detention setting and deliver participative music workshops with groups of detainees. We’ve been doing this for three years, so we have built up some understanding of what works.

First, we don’t do concerts. That’s not to say that we don’t do listening, but we want groups to do music together, so we try to avoid the distancing effect (‘me artist, you audience’) that the visiting expert can have. Listening to someone else play their music after you have played them yours is a different kind of listening, one which speaks of equality, a valuable commodity in this setting.

Second, we do plans and then we throw them away. We can never know in advance how many people will come to a session, or what their cultural backgrounds will be, or what mood they’ll be in. Someone might participate enthusiastically one day and the very next (we sometimes do 3–4 day residencies) will be too low to make it to the music room. A removal can affect the atmosphere in the whole centre. So, as one of our musicians puts it, set your objectives in stone but your methods in sand. Practitioners in many settings will recognise this, but the detention centre is perhaps a uniquely volatile environment. It certainly calls for skills of a high order, both musical and psychological.

Third, we include everyone. This is obvious, but difficult. That guy sat in the corner might be waiting for someone to nudge him to join in, or might be participating fully by watching and listening. Then there’s the cultural range – we can’t match leader to group in advance, so we might send in (say) West African and Kurdish musicians to lead together, thus undermining cultural assumptions all round, increasing participation and often producing wonderfully rich music making. And when you get down to it, the musical building blocks of melody, rhythm, pitch, timbre and so on are often not so different between cultures which seem at first very distant from each other – another way for music to bring people together.

Fourth, we try to balance process and product. The central impacts we are looking for (expression, communication, emotion and so on) are on the whole most powerfully achieved through the process of music-making; they arise from how participants get involved and absorbed, interact, lead and follow, listen and sing, in other words, from the ebb and flow of the workshop experience. Sometimes the workshop is entirely focused on its own pathway.
    
But sometimes we have something else in the mix – we’re composing and recording a song, for example. In this situation, the need for a tangible outcome changes the dynamic of the group. It may be harder to involve everyone because musical ability varies or particular ideas have to be selected, so the social and emotional impacts may be compromised. On the other hand, this kind of project can focus and motivate by giving everyone a target to work towards. And pride in the finished product can be a visible and lasting benefit, bringing recognition and self-esteem in shovelfuls.

Another extra layer is introduced when we deliver what we call ‘community exchanges’. The idea here is to work with a group of detainees and a group down the road in the local community – for example, a class in a local school, or a youth group, or it could be a tenants’ and residents’ association, or a reminiscence group in a care home – and develop musical material by taking it back and forth between the two groups. The resulting CD (another tangible outcome) uses recording techniques to produce tracks in which, for example, children and detainees sing and play the same music alongside each other, although they have never met – a moving and evocative symbol of the human reality of the situation (unlike the prison system, there is no day release scheme for immigration detainees).

Community exchanges multiply the impact that the music can have. For detainees, as well as the benefits of making music together, there is the sense of connection to people in the wider community on the other side of the wall, and psychological support from that contact and the creative exchange this brings. Participants in the community learn about what brings detainees to the UK and their experience of detention; stereotypes are challenged and they are able to empathise with a migrant or asylum seeker’s experience. As one young person from a tough housing estate in Gosport, when asked why someone might leave home and come to the UK, succinctly put it, ‘It’s crap round here’.  

This work in local communities seems to achieve three things. It provides a rich and stimulating cultural and creative experience, from working with professional musicians, producing a CD, performing, and experiencing different musical styles and cultures. Second, it contributes to local programmes tackling issues around what is fashionably known these days as ‘integration and cohesion’ – in other words, helping people get to grips with living alongside other kinds of people, be it British ethnic minorities, dispersed asylum seekers or migrant workers from Eastern Europe. And lastly, it helps to connect local people to the closed institution on their doorstep, and shine some extra light inside its walls.