VISITS BY THE JOINT COMMISSION The Pre-Deportation Detention Wing is located on a landing on the second floor of that block in which remand detainees are held. The landing has been screened off from the wing accommodating those in remand detention by means of wooden boards. Remand prisoners are accommodated on the other half of the landing, and detainees awaiting deportation are kept separate from them only by means of a gate. On account of the lack of separation between the two groups of detainees, the detainees awaiting deportation are subject to the same security regulations and procedures as prisoners. They have only one hour of yard exercise per day and are only permitted to use the showers twice a week at specified times. The wooden boards mean that only little daylight gets into the landing, which is very dark. Although detention rooms in the Pre-Deportation Detention Wing are unlocked for 6 1/2 hours every day, detainees only have the dark corridor to stand around in during that time since there is no common room with seating or other opportunities to engage in any purposeful activities. According to the head of the institution, there is a kitchen on the landing. Detainees awaiting deportation have few opportunities to communicate or get information because they are not allowed to use their mobile phones and are only given limited opportunity to make telephone calls using the facility’s own phone. The Joint Commission recommends at least making a common room with chairs and rooms available to detainees awaiting deportation where they can engage in purposeful activities and that these be accessible to them all day long. In addition, they should be given access to the yard for several hours each day and better access to information and means of communication. Response: The Ministry is of the opinion that detainees awaiting deportation should, if possible, be held separately from prisoners in specialised detention facilities in order to avoid the impression of discrimination or criminalisation arising. Against this backdrop the current situation in the PreDeportation Detention Wing is not satisfactory, since the relaxed conditions which should actually be applied to this type of detention cannot be implemented for the detainees awaiting deportation on account of the cramped conditions in this wing in Bützow Prison. For that reason the Ministry of the Interior and Sports of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is endeavouring to create other options for male detainees awaiting deportation as soon as possible and is evaluating various possibilities. The possibilities for improving the situation in the prison are being fully exhausted during this transitional period in which Bützow Prison is still being used to enforce custody pending deportation. As mentioned in the above, in Bützow Prison custody pending deportation is enforced in a separate area in one of the blocks and detainees are thus subject to restrictions. The company responsible for construction and real property of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has been commissioned with examining the possibility of closing the top storey ceiling in order to make the entire, spacious landing available to detainees awaiting deportation when they are not in their rooms. This would mean they could use table tennis tables and engage in other recreational activities. The examination has not yet been completed. Seating is to be made available in the common room in the course of 2014. Detainees awaiting deportation may use the showers during two fixed periods each week. However, they can shower more frequently, for instance after doing sports or before seeing a doctor, if they so wish. It is currently not possible to extend daily yard exercise times to several hours since the prison has one recreation yard less at its disposal on account of refurbishment work. That is why detainees are currently only permitted one hour outside each day. As well as general access to information via the radio and TV, detainees awaiting detention are also given two Turkish daily newspapers to read. Given the current situation it is difficult to make any changes to the available means of communication. Detainees awaiting deportation are permitted to make telephone calls with the outside world using the Telio telephone system. Calls generally have to be paid for, although in justified exceptional cases and taking account of the concrete circumstances of the individual case, free phone calls and calls abroad at the prison’s expense are possible. Detainees are not permitted to use their own mobile phones as it is not generally permissible to use these on the prison grounds. No recreational or other purposeful activities are available on the landing where detainees awaiting deportation are held. They can only engage in other sports (sports hall, volleyball, table tennis) for a few hours each week. Response: It is not possible to extend the range of recreational activities on offer to any satisfactory degree due to the wing being embedded within the prison. As already described in the above, neither yard exercise nor sports for two hours a day are sufficient to sensibly fill a day. To mitigate this situation Bützow Prison allows detainees awaiting deportation to receive visitors during general visiting hours without waiting or lead times and it has TVs and radios which detainees can borrow. Detainees are permitted to use the sports room in the upper storey for two hours every day, an improvement on the previous situation. Advice and meetings, for example with nongovernmental organisations are not available. A position for a social worker was cut. The prison chaplain, who also puts a great deal of time and effort 57