English

Noun

detention centre ‎(plural detention centres)

1. A facility in which people are detained (held in custody); a jail.
   • 2002, Russell Hogg, Chapter 1: Prisoners and the Penal Estate in Australia, David Brown, Meredith Wilkie (editors), Prisoners as Citizens: Human Rights in Australian Prisons, page 3,

     All jurisdictions have their own prison systems, although the Australia Capital Territory (ACT) has only one remand centre and one periodic detention centre.

2. (Australia) An immigration detention facility; a facility in which people who have attempted to enter Australia without prior authorisation are detained, pending a decision on whether they are to be accepted as refugees or returned to their country of origin.
   • 2004, Brian Galligan, Winsome Roberts, Australian Citizenship, page 69,

     New detention centres were opened, all in remote areas — at Woomera in the South Australian desert in November 1999, and the Curtin Detention Centre at Derby in Western Australia in February 2000.

   • 2005, Geoff Leane, Barbara Von Tigerstrom, International Law Issues in the South Pacific, page 30,

     One of the main features of Australia′s ‘Pacific Solution’ is that it involves the use of the Australian Navy to prevent boat people from landing on mainland Australia. The boat people are then transferred to detention centres on offshore Australian Territories which have been excised from the country′s migration zone where regular immigration rules are in application.⁷⁸Detention centres for such transfers have also been set up on Nauru and Manus Island (Papua New Guinea).⁷⁹

   • 2009, Linda Briskman, Chris Goddard, Susie Latham, Human Rights Overboard: Seeking Asylum in Australia, page 31,

     People landing on these islands could also be transferred to detention centres on Nauru or Manus Island and had no access to Australia′s legal system.

3. A concentration camp.