Implementation of the Duties and Powers of the National Preventive Mechanism in 2012 Working conditions for employees The NPM established that police officers conduct their work in extremely poor working conditions in the case of PS Šentjur pri Celju and PS Rače. Police officers in PS Šentjur pri Celju use a room in the cellar as their office. This room is at the same time also their changing room with no separate places for males and females. In addition, chairs for use by police officers for their office work were, in the NPM’s opinion, not really adequate. In PS Rače, the problem is mainly the small size of the rooms. In the same offices of this police station, police officers change their clothes, have their meals, carry out administrative tasks, receive clients and collect information as well as carrying out interviews. There are also changing closets which are not separated for men and women. In this police station, there is no detention room nor any other room for the temporary accommodation for a person who has been detained; as a matter of fact, the lobby of a police station (the first room into which a person enters after the entrance door) is dedicated to the temporary accommodation of persons in detention. In such cases, when the need for temporary accommodation arises, a police officer locks the entrance door of the police station. The NPM pointed out that such practice is neither appropriate nor safe from the point of view of other clients arriving at the police station. In addition, it provides an opportunity for a person who has been deprived of liberty to escape. The Ministry of the Interior ordered employees in PS Rače to rearrange a smaller room for storage of equipment and change it into a room for interviews with clients and persons deprived of their liberty; in this manner their conditions of work had been slightly improved, particularly for clients, since it is now much easier for a police officer to conduct an interview. In the police station, there is a room dedicated to archiving of documents which is located next to the boiler room; the doors into the room, however, are not protected against fire, nor is the archive secured with an alarm system in case of fire. In spite of all of the above mentioned, another problem noticed in PS Rače is also the wear and tear to the staircase leading into the entry doors of the police station; due to this, in winter time (frost), one of the police officers slipped on the damaged part of the staircase by accident, fell and hurt himself. In PS Žalec it was possible to take a shower but the room was not separated for men and women, neither was it possible for a user to lock the doors while showering. During the visit to PS Žalec, it was also established that rooms in the police station were still not airconditioned which makes the work of police officers difficult during the summer heat since, due to the location of the police station with big (old) windows (with poor sealing capacity), the premises of the police station become very hot. It was also noticed by the NPM that computer equipment in PS Žalec was rather out of date and that it did not assist police officers in producing written documents quickly. National Preventive Mechanism in the Republic of Slovenia under the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment 53