Deciphering despair: A study of self-harm in the Australian asylum seeker population

Abstract

Australia has had a policy of mandatory immigration detention for all ‘unlawful non-citizens’ since 1992. During periods when there have been a large number of boat arrivals, the vast majority of the detention population have been asylum seekers, referred to as ‘irregular maritime arrivals’. Whilst asylum seekers are at elevated risk of self-harm, and being detained is known to further increase such risk, until recently little has been known about self-harm across the Australian asylum seeker population. This is largely due to the lack of accessible data, and the Australian immigration authorities’ poor self-harm monitoring and reporting processes. This thesis fills a number of gaps in both..