Turin's CIE - International University College of Turin

distinguishes this investigation from others is the fact that it heavily drew upon detainees’ firsthand
experiences, with about 60% of interviewees being former or current detainees.
The spatial and temporal boundaries of the study were precisely defined. The survey was
limited to experiences of detention which occurred between January 2011 and June 2012
inclusive inside only one of the fourteen Italian CIEs: the Centre for Identification and Expulsion
“Brunelleschi” of Turin.
The sample population was constituted of different categories of interviewees and consequently
three different interview forms were prepared 5 . However, in order to ensure a high
comparability between the answers given by different subjects on the same topic, each form
was divided into the same thematic sections. The research group drafted the interview forms
together with the clinical supervisors using as a model the questionnaires produced by a similar
albeit much broader survey that was conducted by Jesuit Refugee Service-Europe in twenty-one
EU Member States in the period 2008-2010 as part of the “Research Project on the Detention of
Vulnerable Asylum Seekers in the European Union” (DEVAS Project) 6 .
Our three interview forms were prepared both in English and Italian. A leaflet explaining what
our research project consists of was produced in various languages (English, Italian, Russian,
Arabic, Chinese, French, Spanish and Bengali). Interviews were mainly conducted in Italian,
although some of them were carried out in English, Spanish and Russian. Interviews were held
in person or via telephone and they were recorded with the prior consent of the interviewee. All
interviews conducted in Italian were translated to English and the translations were doublechecked
by a native Italian-speaker with an advanced level of English in cooperation with a
native English-speaker with an advanced level of Italian.
The research group drafted an informed consent form in both English and Italian that the
interviewees were asked to read and sign when the interview was held in person. The
interviewers read the consent form aloud to the interviewees when the interview was
conducted via telephone 7 . Interviewees were granted the utmost confidentiality and their
participation in the research project is anonymous. Therefore, their names, personal details and
any specific identifying information have been deleted from this report. Given the emotional
sensitivity of the interview topics, interviewees were free to refuse to answer questions that
they did not feel like answering. Each interview took from forty to ninety minutes to complete,
depending on the interviewee’s desire to elaborate their answers.
Accessing the Sample Population
The method used to access the sample population was mainly based on informal networks. To
contact lawyers, journalists, NGO workers and volunteers, the research group used personal and
professional networks with the assistance of ASGI and the Clinical Program partner institutions.
To contact former and current detainees, the cooperation of professionals and volunteers was at
first extremely helpful. However, after the first handful of detainee interviews it became much
easier to access migrants willing to participate in the survey. After being interviewed a number
of migrants explained the project to other people who are or were in their CIE detention
quarters and then provided the researchers with the new contacts. Using this method, the
5 See Appendix 3: The Interview Forms.
6 Jesuit Refugee Service-Europe, Becoming Vulnerable in Detention: Civil Society Report on the Detention of
Vulnerable Asylum Seekers and Irregular Migrants, June 2010. For further information on the DEVAS Project,
the aforementioned final report and all of the methodological documents used to implement the project, see:
.
7 See Appendix 4: The Consent Form.
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