1. INTRODUCTION
In late 2017, the Norwegian Red Cross commissioned the Global Detention Project (GDP) to undertake a study comparing conditions and procedures at Norway’s Trandum Immigration Detention Centre to those at similar facilities in other European countries. The Red Cross commissioned the study because of growing concerns that needed reforms at Trandum have not been initiated despite repeated recommendations from relevant experts, in particular Norway’s Parliamentary Ombudsman. The Red Cross hopes that a comparative study of this kind can lead to positive reforms in Norway and elsewhere.
The Parliamentary Ombudsman, which is mandated to visit all places of detention in Norway in its capacity as the country’s National Preventive Mechanism (NPM), has repeatedly identified a number of worrying practices at Trandum. A common theme arising from its visits to the facility has been that while detainees generally think they are “treated with respect and receive the necessary assistance in their day-to-day pursuits,” as a 2015 Ombudsman report noted, detainees nevertheless consider themselves to be “treated as criminals” even when they have not committed any crimes. The Ombudsman concluded at the time that the facility was, inter alia, placing an “excessive attention to control and security at the expense of the individual detainee’s integrity,” employing the “same security procedures as the correctional services,” and unsuitable for children.
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