CAT/C/42/2 page 7 13. Whether or not torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment occurs in practice in a State, there is always a need for every Sate to be vigilant in order to guard against the risk of such occurrence and to put in place and maintain effective and comprehensive safeguards to protect people deprived of their liberty. It is the role of preventive mechanisms to ensure that such safeguards are actually in place and operating effectively and to make recommendations to improve the system of safeguards, both in law and in practice, and thereby the situation of people deprived of their liberty. The SPT’s preventive approach is forward looking. In examining examples of both good and bad practice, the SPT seeks to build upon existing protections, to close the gap between theory and practice and to eliminate, or reduce to a minimum, the possibilities for torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. III. VISITING PLACES OF DEPRIVATION OF LIBERTY A. Planning the work of the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture in the field 14. During its second year of operation, the SPT continued to select the States to be visited by a reasoned process, with reference to the principles indicated in article 2 of the OPCAT. Among the factors that may be taken into consideration in the choice of countries to be visited by the SPT are date of ratification/development of NPMs, geographic distribution, size and complexity of State, regional preventive monitoring in operation, and specific or urgent issues reported. 15. The SPT has found it necessary to limit its planned programme of visits to three visits per year because of budgetary constraints. The SPT wishes to state categorically that it does not consider this periodicity of regular visits adequate to fulfil its mandate under the OPCAT. 16. In early 2008, it became apparent, when costings for the visits were provided, that there would be insufficient funding to support even the reduced programme of visits, i.e. two SPT visits in the second half of 2008. The SPT decided that, rather than undertake both planned visits in a superficial manner, it would proceed to carry out the first of the two scheduled visits with an allocation of time and human resources more appropriate to the work as planned. This inevitably led to the postponement of the remaining visit planned for 2008 until early 2009. 17. In the course of 2008, the SPT continued to develop its approach to the strategic planning of its visit programme in relation to the existing number of States parties. The SPT takes the view that, after the initial period of SPT development, the visits programme in the medium term should involve ten visits per twelve-month period. This annual rate of visits is based on the conclusion that, to visit the 46 States parties effectively in order to prevent ill-treatment, the SPT would have to visit each State party at least once every four/five years on average. In the SPT’s view, less frequent visits could jeopardize effective support to and reinforcement of NPMs in the fulfilment of their role and the protection afforded to persons deprived of liberty. 18. Four additional ratifications or accessions will bring the total States parties to 50, with a concomitant requirement for an increase in budgetary resources and an increase in SPT