Criminalisation, Containment and Courts: a call for cross-fertilisation between the social sciences and legal-doctrinal research into immigration detention in Europe

This chapter examines how the legal regulation of such immigration detention in Europe relates to research in the social sciences on criminalisation of irregular migration and practices of containment in Europe. Practices of criminalisation and containment are extensively discussed in current scholarship, but that same literature is characterised by a lack of attention to the way in which these developments relate to the role of courts, both domestic and European. Sociological and criminological scholarship, with its predominantly one-dimensional emphasis on the penal and punitive aspects of immigration detention, risks overlooking important consequences of judicial decision-making in this area. But legal doctrinal analysis as well, more particularly regarding judicial review of detention, should engage more thoroughly with research in the social sciences, which has highlighted the increased use of containment in border control practices. Increased cross- fertilisation between legal-doctrinal research and the social sciences is called for in this area.