Overview of the National Preventive Mechanism The NPM is also obliged to inform the public about its responsibilities and the results of its work, thus fulfilling its obligation to inform at events, lectures and training programmes. 1.2 Monitoring and control visits in numbers The six commissions carried out 495 visits Austria-wide in the year under review 2017. This total figure includes both monitoring visits and observation of police operations. At 91%, the majority of these visits were to institutions and facilities. The average duration of the visits was about five hours. The visits were unannounced in most cases. They were announced in only 5% of the cases. Monitoring and control activities of the commissions in 2017 (absolute figures) Preventive human rights monitoring 495 Monitoring of institutions and facilities 451 Monitoring of police operations* 44 *these include: forced returns, demonstrations, assemblies A total of 451 visits to institutions and facilities Expressed in absolute numbers, 451 visits were made to institutions and facilities throughout Austria. It must be considered that the number of visits is not equivalent to the number of visited institutions, as many of them were visited several times during the year under review. This applies to correctional institutions and police detention centres in particular. Observations of 44 police operations Police operations were monitored by the commissions 44 times in total. The predominant areas for observation were major police operations, raids, football matches where trouble was expected, forced returns and demonstrations. 1 round-table meetings In addition to the monitoring and control activities, the commissions held 21 round-table meetings with institutions and senior administrative departments. The following table breaks down the visits in detail, indicating how many visits were made to which type of facility. Depending on the institutions to be visited, differentiation is made between police stations, retirement and 14