APPENDIX Dnr O 7-2018 Page 14 (21) Measures to break the isolation of inmates The Prison and Probation Service's objective is that inmates who are not allowed to associate with other inmates should be offered isolation-breaking measures for at least two hours per day. In meeting this objective, the agency includes activities that do not mean that an inmate has human contact, for example when an inmate is alone in an exercise yard or in a gym.33 I have stated above that such changes in environment should not be described as isolation-breaking measures. What matters, instead, is the extent to which the Prison and Probation Service is able to meet inmates' daily needs for meaningful human contact. As already mentioned, the Prison and Probation Service measures its work with isolation-breaking measures seven times a year. The agency states that there exist inherent uncertainties within the surveys and that comparisons between years should be made with great caution. I have stated that these surveys are the only statistics that currently exist to describe the Prison and Probation Service's work on this issue. As previously mentioned, the category inmates with restrictions not only includes the results for isolationbreaking measures in relation to inmates with restrictions, but it also includes inmates with decisions to place them in segregation. I have stated above that it cannot be ruled out that this category also includes inmates who are placed in segregation with no basis in law.34 This latter group of inmates has a legal right to associate with other inmates during the day. The surveys that the Prison and Probation Service carried out on the use of isolation-breaking measures in the period 2016–2018 for the category inmates with restrictions can be summarised as follows: In 2018, the Prison and Probation Service received 6,089 inmates with restrictions. The surveys from that year show that only 17 per cent of these inmates received isolation-breaking measures that involve human contact for two hours or more per day. In 2017, the Prison and Probation Service received 5,470 inmates with restrictions, and in 2016 the corresponding figure was 4,927. The proportion of inmates with two hours or more per day ofmeasures involving human contact was, for these years, 16 and 14 per cent respectively. In 2018, the group inmates with restrictions was significantly larger than in 2016, which should have meant a strain on the Prison and Probation Service. The surveys show that the agency nevertheless succeeded marginally better in relation to its objective in 2018 compared to 2016. At the same time, a very troublesome fact remains, namely that in 2018, 83 per cent of the inmates in the 33 See SOU 2016:52 p. 69. 34 See the Prison and Probation Service's annual report 2018 p. 31, footnote 23 cf. the Parliamentary Ombudsmen’s report dnr O 7-2018 p. 7. – 95 – C