VISITS BY THE JOINT COMMISSION detainees awaiting deportation are then generally not booked into the facility, but are transferred to a clinic, for example. The admission procedure described by the head of the social services is satisfactory in the eyes of the Joint Commission, since detainees awaiting deportation are given comprehensive information about all the procedures in the facility, about their rights and available offers. Emphasis should be given to the offers available in the facility, especially the ecumenical advice centre and the weekly, free legal advice provided by the Diakonisches Werk Hessen und Nassau (a branch of the social welfare organisation of the Protestant Church in Germany). The Joint Commission also welcomes the fact that the detention facility does not apply Fixierung (physical restraint) and that in an emergency highly agitated individuals are taken to hospital. Unlocking times in the detention facility are generous, from 7 am to 10 pm. During this time detainees are free to go into the recreation yard at any time. A number of structural improvements have also been made in the detention facility. Some of the detention and common rooms which the Joint Commission inspected already had new furnishings and had been repainted. The rooms were light and friendly. Each detention room also had a completely separate wet cell. The showers in the communal shower room were each separated by means of partitions. The Joint Commission especially welcomes the planned cooperation with the Treatment Centre for the Victims of Torture in the context of which training staff in the detention centre in how to recognising traumatisation is being considered. Such training courses should be carried out soon and not only with the medical staff in the detention facility, but also with all staff who regularly come into contact with detainees awaiting deportation. Since it is not always obvious that detainees awaiting deportation are traumatised, this cannot always be ruled out during the preliminary medical examination carried out to establish whether someone is fit to be detained. 1.1 – INGELHEIM DETENTION CENTRE FOR PERSONS REQUIRED TO LEAVE THE COUNTRY The Joint Commission visited Ingelheim Detention Centre for Persons Required to Leave the Country on 25 February 2013. The Joint Commission inspected the closed wing, several open wings, sanitary facilities, an observation room, common rooms, the recreation yard and prayer rooms. It held a meeting in private with two detainees awaiting deportation being held in an open wing. It also asked to hold a meeting with a prison chaplain, a psychologist or the facility’s ecumenical counsellor. However, no such persons were on hand at the time of the visit. Ingelheim Detention Centre for Persons Required to Leave the Country can hold 77 detainees; at the time of the visit it was holding five detainees awaiting deportation, including one woman. 1.1.1 – Positive findings The “Runder Tisch Ingelheim” Working Group set up by the Ministry for Integration of RhinelandPalatinate took up its work in August 2011. As well as the Ministry for Integration of Rhineland-Palatinate, the working group included representatives of nongovernmental organisations and the churches. Its task was to examine both the conditions of custody pending deportation and its enforcement and to make suggestions for improving detention in the facility from the humanitarian perspective. An alternative concept for the facility’s future structure was to be developed and adopted by late 2012. In addition, immediate measures were agreed which were to be implemented in a timely fashion independently of the future use to which the detention facility was to be put. The Joint Commission explicitly welcomes the establishment of a round table which looked into improving the conditions of detention and that it consulted experts. It was able to inspect a few of the immediate measures which have already been implemented. The results of the round table and its recommendations have been posted (in German) on the website of the Rhineland-Palatinate Working 20 Group on Asylum. The Joint Commission takes a positive view of the preliminary medical examination which takes place before someone is taken into detention to check that they are fit to be detained. Any (mentally) sick 1.1.2 – Recommendations of the Joint Commission and response of the Ministry for Integration, Family Affairs, Children, Youth and Women of Rhineland-Palatinate Solitary confinement and segregation are particularly drastic measures and cause those concerned extraordinary levels of stress. That is why the facility must make every effort to keep segregation as short as possible and to take measures to mitigate the extreme psychological burden it places on detainees. 20 http://wp.asyl-rlp.org/?cat=5 (last retrieved: 17 February 2014) (only available in German) 47