CAT/C/POL/CO/7
(b)
Ensure that medical personnel and other public officials engaged in the
custody, interrogation and treatment of persons subjected to any form of arrest,
detention or imprisonment receive mandatory training on the Istanbul Protocol;
(c)
Develop and implement a methodology to assess the effectiveness and
impact of educational and training programmes relating to the Convention and the
Istanbul Protocol;
(d)
Ensure that all law enforcement officers, civilian judges, military judges
and public prosecutors receive mandatory training emphasizing the link between noncoercive interrogation techniques, the prohibition of torture and ill-treatment and the
obligation of the judiciary to invalidate confessions made under torture.
Conditions of detention in police detention units and prison facilities
29.
The Committee is concerned:
(a)
At reports of inadequate material conditions in police detention units,
including in relation to sanitary facilities, exercise yards and the quality of food; and in
particular at reports that the officers employed at the municipal police station in Białystok
had complained that the living conditions there, including an informal ban on washing the
bedding, blankets, pillows and mattresses used by detainees, endangered the lives and
health of both the detainees and the police officers;
(b)
That all cells in police detention units are located in the basements of the
buildings housing them, which results in inadequate ventilation and insufficient access to
light;
(c)
At the increase in the prison population during the period under review to an
occupancy rate of around 92 per cent; and that some prisoners are housed in facilities that
fall below the national legal standard of 3 m2 per person in cells that are too narrow;
(d)
That there is mould on the walls and ceilings of cells of prisoners
incarcerated in historic buildings and older penitentiary units, which exposes them to mould
spores; that sanitary annexes have not been removed from all cells; that not all sanitary
units have shower stalls and toilets allowing inmates adequate privacy; and that pretrial
detainees and prisoners in closed penitentiary facilities remain in their cells for 23 hours a
day;
(e)
That health care in prisons is provided by medical staff employed by the
Prison Service, which may hinder their clinical independence and affect trust-based doctorpatient relations, especially since the law requires medical practitioners to certify whether a
prisoner is fit for punishment in a disciplinary cell, which is contrary to the United Nations
Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Nelson Mandela Rules); that
there is a considerable shortage of medical staff, including psychiatrists, and slowness in
referrals to outside specialists; and that diagnoses by prison medical staff are often incorrect
and superficial and have resulted in deaths in custody;
(f)
That prisoners are classified not in terms of the level of danger that they pose
to other prisoners but according to the length of their prison sentence, which may lead to
inter-prisoner violence.
30.
The State party should:
(a)
Ensure adequate material conditions in all police detention units,
including sufficient ventilation and lighting, clean bedding and appropriate sanitary
conditions; and, where possible, ensure that police detention facilities are above the
ground;
(b)
Rigorously implement the programme for the modernization of the
Prison Service from 2017 to 2020; provide updated information to the Committee on
the outcome of the work of the task force for developing solutions to reform
penitentiary services; and consider increasing the use of non-custodial measures and
alternatives to detention, in keeping with the Tokyo Rules;
10