Presentation Like other European democracies, Spain has made a great effort in recent years to eradicate all violations of fundamental rights in places of deprivation of liberty. The ratification by our country of the OPCAT and the subsequent designation via a public general act of the Ombudsman of Spain as the NPM are clear evidence of this. When the Ombudsman of Spain became the NPM, a process of internal reorganisation was set in motion to ensure proper performance of the tasks that this entailed. A unit was set up whose main purpose is to increase the number of inspection visits made. This report is tangible proof of how diligently it has fulfilled its remit. We have also worked on designing the remaining elements that are to make up the final structure of the Mechanism, especially the Advisory Council, on extending our capabilities for normative analysis and on developing a training and dissemination programme. Our Office has a long track record of defending fundamental rights that has resulted in its visiting many places of detention over its almost thirty years of operations. Designation as NPM is an acknowledgement of that fact, but it also poses the challenge of extending and raising the profile of our activities in this field, strengthening preventive aspects. With budgetary constraints in mind, all this has been done through the reallocation of in-house personnel. This has required extra efforts by all the services in our institution, which I should like to publically acknowledge here. The Ombudsman of Spain must combine two tasks in the defence of the rights of detainees: a reactive task, arising from its competences in the processing of complaints and ex officio investigations, and a preventive task, seeking direct, truthful and accurate information on the conditions and procedures that prevail in places of detention of all types, whatever the term of imprisonment involved, with a view to promoting measures to prevent torture, mistreatment and abuse. In this preventive task it is essential to analyse risk factors and impunity, and offer guidance to public administrations through frequent, constructive dialogue. In any event, this is precisely the way in which our institution goes about its everyday business. This report tackles a great many issues and covers a great many inspection visits, but we are fully aware that this is just a part of the enormous, exciting task that lies before us. Our objective is to assure a state under the rule of law for everyone, especially for those who are most vulnerable because they are in prison. M.ª Luisa Cava de Llano y Carrió Acting Ombudsman of Spain THE OMBUDSMAN OF SPAIN 5