MigrationWatchdog

Yarl's Wood: what the independent bodies have found

Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre is one of nine immigration removal centres in the Ombudsman's own list. This page brings together what the three bodies that scrutinise it have published — and, where they have published nothing, says so.

The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman records no investigation into a death at Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre, HM Inspectorate of Prisons has published 1 inspection report naming it, and its independent monitoring board has published 1 report.

0
ombudsman investigations into a death
investigations published up to 2025-09-12 · source
1
inspection reports naming this centre
published up to 2026-07-14 · source
1
monitoring board documents naming it
published up to 2026-09-02 · source
What these three counts are, and are not

They count published documents, not events. A centre with no inspection report in this list has not necessarily gone uninspected, and a centre with more reports is not thereby worse: inspection is scheduled, monitoring is annual, and an ombudsman investigation follows a death.

The ombudsman investigates every death of a person detained under immigration powers, so a count of zero here means no such death has been investigated at this centre in the published record. That is a fact worth printing rather than a gap in the data.

The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman

The Ombudsman's published record contains no investigation into a death at this centre. That is printed here because an absence established from a complete list is a finding; it is not the same as a gap in what this site collected.

investigations published up to 2025-09-12 · source

HM Inspectorate of Prisons

The Inspectorate's judgements are its own. This site republishes that a report exists and links to it, and does not summarise its conclusions.

published up to 2026-07-14 · source

The independent monitoring board

Why a board report may exist without naming this centre
Monitoring boards report by site, and a single site can contain more than one removal centre. A board report published under a site name will not match a centre name and does not appear above. The absence of a document here is therefore not evidence that this centre is unmonitored. Every board document the site holds, whichever name it is published under, is listed on the scrutiny page.
published up to 2026-09-02 · source

The detention estate as a whole — how many people are held, for how long, and the welfare record — is on the crime and enforcement page, and the other centres are listed on the detention index.