 The lack of awareness of the need for special measures to protect vulnerable groups, such as women, children, migrants and minorities Problems relating to legislation and the functioning of the legal system           The non-existence of, or failure to implement, legislative fair-trial safeguards, such as access to lawyers and doctors, limits on pre-trial detention periods and related guarantees The absence of torture as an offence in national criminal legislation or its inclusion under a definition not in conformity with international law and/or subject to inadequate penalties Pressure to resolve criminal cases and the basing of promotions and/or performance evaluations for prosecutors and police officers on conviction rates and/or percentage of cases solved A lack of training and/or access to evidence-collection techniques, resulting in an excessive reliance on confessions as the main source of evidence The absence of interrogation procedures that tend to safeguard against torture The absence of accessible and independent internal mechanisms for investigating allegations of torture The failure to investigate allegations of torture promptly and impartially The failure to punish adequately – or at all – those guilty of the criminal offence of torture Immunity for certain officials from prosecution for torture A lack of alternative sentencing possibilities 3.2 Lessons learned: OSCE experience Among the positive factors identified by field operations in preventing torture were the following: the creation of NPMs with the power to make regular visits to places of deprivation of liberty and to make recommendations to the authorities; a reduction of overcrowding at places of deprivation of liberty; effective training for justice branch employees; improving access to independent and well-trained defence lawyers at an early stage of the proceedings; and the use of a telephone hotline advice network for reporting allegations of torture. Detention monitoring was widely reported to be a key way to encourage authorities to acknowledge the existence and extent of torture and encourage governments to work with civil society. Once monitoring is accepted in principle, more concrete evidence of any existing torture and ill-treatment can be obtained. It also seems that publicizing evidence of these practices can have an effect on behaviour. The field operation in Albania, for example, mentioned that the practice of ill-treatment or beating people in public by police seems to have decreased. Although this may only be a first step, it highlights the importance of exposing torture and ill-treatment to public view and ensuring it is not allowed to thrive un-scrutinized in places of deprivation of liberty. Where states have denied the existence of such practices, OSCE field operations have looked for alternative methods of verifying the presence and extent of these 24