A new report has revealed that scores of people, including young children, are being criminalised in the United Kingdom simply for arriving in ‘small boats’.

The report, titled ‘No Such Thing as Justice Here’, has been prepared by Centre for Criminology at the University of Oxford and Border Criminologies. It has explored hundreds of cases through attending court hearings, interviews and freedom of information requests.

The report found that hundreds of people have been imprisoned simply for arriving in a samll boat to the UK’s shores since the country enacted the Nationality and Borders Act in 2022.

It reveals that between June 2022 and October 2023, a total of 260 people were convicted in the act. This includes 257 for illegal entry and the rest for facilitation.

The illeal arrivals clause was introduced by the Act after many people successfully appealed their punishments for arrival in the UK. The maximum sentence for the offences was increased from 14 years to life imprisonment.

Many have been imprisoned for ‘steering the boat’ meaning they were incharge of the operation. However, the report has found dozens of reasons for having a ‘hand on the tiller’. These reasons include ‘boating experience, steering in return for discounted passage, taking it in turns, or being under duress’.

However, the justice in the UK has meted out harsh punishments to the people involved, often including trials of children as adults.

The report says that there are massive questions about the treatment of people who could be refugees or trafficking victims. It has also called for an end to ‘criminalisation at the border’.

So far, the Home Office says the report uses misleading language and that the government is taking ‘robust’ action to solve the problem.