psychiatrist lead to breaches of the agreements on the extent of service that should be provided. This leads to the following overarching long-term problem – that particularly in the evening and at weekends, the medicinal therapy, including psychiatric, is not distributed by medical staff, but prison guards. On the other hand, interviewed psychiatric experts reported of positive experience regarding availability and the quality of psychiatric care in prisons. They also mentioned that the assessment and referral mechanisms in place have led to significant decrease of suicide rates in Slovenian prisons in the last ten years.150 The Prison Administration reportedly has a team for addressing self-harming behaviour, in which experts from all of the national prisons and the forensic psychiatry unit meet and discuss all cases of persons at risk. It was mentioned that the work of this team is very successful.151 Relevant issues in prisons the NPM has been reporting on: - Overcrowding: reflected in the claims of imprisoned persons to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) for compensation for inadequate conditions during their imprisonment and/or detention.152 - Staff shortages in all areas of work, especially in the areas of professional work with prisoners and security. - Provision of work for convicted prisoners/purposeful activities – the NPM recommended that the prisons should put more efforts to find ways to improve the situation regarding the provision of work for convicted prisoners. It was stressed that work contributes to social rehabilitation and has a positive impact on the individual's psychological state and satisfaction, as well as changing the perception of time and giving a sense of having done a meaningful activity.153 150 Interview with psychiatric expert III. Ibid. 152 ECtHR, Mandić in Jović v Slovenia, App no 5774/10 and 5985/10, 7 20 October 2011; Štrucl and others v Slovenia, App no 5903/10, 6003/10 and 6544/10, 20 October 2011. 153 Varuh človekovih pravic (2019), Letno poročilo Državnega preventivnega mehanizma za leto 2018, Ljubljana, Varuh človekovih pravic, p. 172. 49 151