VISITS BY THE JOINT COMMISSION a table tennis table and a fitness bike are currently available. Further, especially where facilities hold detainees awaiting deportation with different cultural backgrounds and thus very different eating habits, detainees should be given the opportunity to prepare their own meals in a kitchen. The Joint Commission welcomes the fact that detainees awaiting deportation may use their own computers. Response: Employment (cleaning work, work in the yard, painting and decorating etc.) is offered to detainees in accordance with section 5 of the Asylum Seekers Benefits Act. However, so far only few detainees awaiting deportation have availed themselves of this opportunity. Yard exercise time currently amounts to one hour per day in each of the four wings. The rule on yard exercise times is currently being revised. Recreation times will be increased to at least 1 1/2 hours per day from 1 November 2013. Detainees can now use the following sports equipment: a treadmill, a rowing machine, two ergo meters and a crossstepper. By contrast it is proving more difficult to implement the suggestion made regarding enabling detainees to prepare their own meals, since this would necessitate larger-scale building alterations and purchases being made. Brandenburg is already taking part in cross-Länder meetings to discuss alternatives to custody pending deportation and how the Länder could cooperate in this area. Before it can be guaranteed that the facility will continue to enforce custody pending deportation in the medium- to long-term, larger investments will only be justified if they can also be put to use afterwards – for example in asylum centres. This matter is being examined and will be taken into account in the context of further planning. The double barbed wire fence surrounding the grounds and the barring of windows in particular give the facility a distinctive prison feel. Since placement in custody pending deportation does not constitute a penalty but serves to enforce deportation, the facility should not feel like a prison. The necessary structural security measures should be unobtrusive and the facility should be as homely and open as possible. The CPT standards set out the following: “Further, care should be taken in the design and layout of the premises to avoid as far as possible 22 any impression of a carceral environment.” The same applies to the recreation yard, which in the Eisenhüttenstadt Pre-Deportation Detention Facility comprises a narrow, bare patch of grass surrounded by barbed wire. This should urgently be remedied. Ingelheim Detention Centre for Persons Required to Leave the Country can again serve as an example here: Most of the visible security measures have been removed. There are also plans to remove the bars on the windows of the detention rooms and to replace them with escape-proof glass. The Joint Commission recommends examining whether the security measures can be removed. Response: The Joint Commission criticised the carceral environment, i.e. the double barred wire fence. This was not originally installed in the facility, but as a consequence of a detainee escaping in 2000. Dismantling the fence without retaining the current level of security against detainees escaping can, therefore, not be considered, nor can the building of a wall to replace the wire fence. Besides, the facility does not meet the security standards of a prison by a long shot. Further, this would necessitate considerable investments about which no decision can currently be taken in view of the low occupancy rates, the fact that the number of detainees will likely drop even further, the discussion about cross-Länder cooperation in this area and the decision which Berlin is yet to take regarding short- or long-term detention of its detainees awaiting deportation in Brandenburg. If the planned increased cooperation with other Länder in the field of custody pending deportation leads to capacities in the facility being put to better use, this will presumably necessitate the outdoor facilities being expanded. In that connection reorganising the outdoor area could then also be considered. At the time of the visit only one woman was being held in the facility. This has often been the case on account of the low occupancy rates, and despite the cooperation with Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, who also place their female detainees awaiting deportation in Eisenhüttenstadt. The female detainee is, thus, inevitably on her own in the wing and has no contact with other detainees awaiting deportation. This is comparable to solitary confinement. The Joint Commission recommends reconsidering the conditions of detention for women in the facility. In view of the risk of isolation which is usually associated with the detention of women, this aspect should be given especial weight when taking the decision to detain anyone. Response: The fact that female detainees are sometimes and of necessity held alone in a wing on account of the low occupancy rates is a problem which other Länder are also faced with. For that reason some Länder do not accommodate any female detainees at all, and these are taken to facilities enforcing custody pending deportation in other Länder in such isolated individual cases. For example, Eisenhüttenstadt Pre-Deportation Detention Facility takes in female detainees awaiting deportation from Schleswig-Holstein and MecklenburgWestern Pomerania. Nevertheless, such “centralised” detention cannot rule out that, in individual cases, detention 22 CPT/Inf/E (2002) 1 – Rev. 2010, margin no. 29 51