E/CN.4/1997/7/Add.3 page 19 slept and where some 100 of them remained cooped up from evening to morning within an area of about 25 square metres, the ceiling space being used to suspend hammocks. 62. The Special Rapporteur also visited the women's quarters at La Planta and Sabaneta and spoke to some of the inmates, who reported that there was no physical ill-treatment in those establishments. Some of them, nevertheless, said they had been tortured by the police in the hours or days following their arrest. In the women's section of the Sabaneta prison, the Special Rapporteur was pleasantly surprised by the prevailing material conditions, which contrasted markedly with those commonly found in the male quarters. According to information received, the women's quarters were not overcrowded and, thanks to a programme financed by the European Union, major improvements were being introduced in the areas of health, education and activity workshops. With regard to the male quarters of both establishments, non-governmental sources reported that inmates were often physically ill-treated on the occasion of the inspections regularly carried out by the National Guard. 63. The authorities whom the Special Rapporteur interviewed, and in particular the Minister of Justice and the Director of Prisons, were very concerned by the prison situation. It is also a concern of the Attorney-General, whose last report contains the following comments: “The human rights of inmates are violated day after day, without the authorities responsible for solving the problem having come up with any effective results. In our prisons, approximately 70 per cent of inmates are persons still awaiting trial, while only 25 to 30 per cent have been convicted. This situation has led to congestion in the prisons, which do not possess the necessary infrastructure to house such a disproportionate number of detainees, which in turn makes any remedial and social resettlement work impossible (...). There is no doubt, therefore, that the delays in passing judgement incurred by some courts have contributed to the breakdown which has occurred in the prison system”. 22 64. Overcrowding is also a problem for the detention premises of the PTJ, which the Special Rapporteur observed at first hand at La Planta. In this connection, the Director of the PTJ said that despite the fact that the latter should not hold people on its premises after the first eight days of detention, there were cases where detainees under detention orders had remained in the hands of the PTJ for four or five months, simply because there was no room for them in the prisons. As a result, he said, PTJ officials had in effect become jailers, a job for which they were not prepared and which gave rise to corrupt practices. 65. Other governmental and non-governmental sources also pointed to the slowness of procedures as a significant cause of prison overcrowding. According to the NGO study on the World Bank and judicial reform in Venezuela, “the number of cases pending before the courts of first instance quintupled between 1986 and 1991, as a result of which the average time for criminal cases to be processed rose to 1,136 working days, 10.4 times more than legally required under the Code of Criminal Procedure. Since, generally speaking, most low-income defendants are unable to put up bail, all those accused of