the decision and made the changes requested, prompting the NPM to conclude that it was more effective than the years of preparing NPM reports.253 Raising awareness of the implications of a prison sentence It has been noted that in many countries most judges have never been to a prison before.254 Malcolm Richardson, Chairman of the Magistrates Association of England and Wales commented that: “Sending offenders to prison, within the strict parameters of the sentencing guidelines, is one of the toughest decisions magistrates have to take on behalf of society. We therefore believe that seeing prison through visitation should be an essential part of judicial training for magistrates.”255 Thus raising awareness of the implications of a prison sentence might possibly contribute to judges taking a different approach to sentencing, for example, applying alternatives to detention on a more frequent basis. To address this issue, the French NPM offers judges the possibility to join the NPM for visits to places of detention during the course of their training.256 Raising awareness of conditions of detention and social implications of handing down custodial sentences, should form part of judicial training. While this might differ from country to country, NPMs could in principle play a role in this, as demonstrated by the example of the French NPM practice, particularly as the mandate of the NPM centres around collecting relevant information relating to conditions of detention in the national context. At the same time, judges will possess information about jurisprudence and cases that might be very relevant for NPMs’ work. Following relevant jurisprudence requires adequate resources for NPMs. Several NPMs confirmed that it would be useful to share information. It might thus be useful for both, judges and NPMs, to exchange information and experiences on joint subjects of concern relevant for both institutions’ professional endeavours. There are a series of different entry points where using information or other modalities of coordination between the judiciary and NPMs could be extremely useful for both of their professional contexts and which at the same time would contribute to achieving improved conditions of detention and safeguards, thereby preventing the ill-treatment of detainees. These entry points will be outlined in the following sub-chapters. 253 Interview with Slovenian NPM, 31.8.2016. The cases referred to are Mandić and Jović v. Slovenia (Application Nos. 5774/10 and 5985/10)) regarding the detention conditions of prisoners on remand and Štrucl and Others v. Slovenia (Applications Nos. 5903/10 and 6003/10 and 6544/10 regarding detention conditions in the closed section of the same prison 254 See The Guardian, “Magistrates demand prison visit as part of judicial training”. Available: https://www.theguardian. com/law/2016/nov/01/magistrates-demand-prison-visits-as-part-of-judicial-training?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Gmail (3 November 2016). 255 Ibidem. 256 Cooperation/coordination between NPMs and judges who have a mandate to visit places of detention will be elaborated in more detail in Chapter 4.2.2.4 below. 67