Australia’s off-shore mandatory immigration detention of asylum seekers: Ethical challenges for psychology

The paper examines Australia’s current policies and practices relating to the off-shore processing of asylum seekers, as they may influence the ethical professional practice of psychology. It briefly analyses Australian political discourse on the themes of border security, people smuggling and queue jumping before discussing the implications of off-shore processing for asylum seekers’ human and legal rights and for mandatory detention of minors and their families. It then examines the ethical challenges for psychologists working in immigration detention that arise in circumstances involving multiple clients, role overlap between assessment, therapeutic treatment and crisis management or negotiation, limits on clients’ autonomy to protest against perceived human rights violations, and conflicts between ethical professional standards, international human rights conventions and local law. Application of the principles of beneficence and non nonmaleficence is informed by existing research findings about the effects of on-shore mandatory detention on the adult and minor detainees’ mental health and psychological wellbeing