Therefore, it is important that any restrictions on family contacts as a form of punishment should be used only where the offence relates to such contacts and only for the shortest time possible.120 In the 2016 parliamentary report on the Situation of Protection of Human Rights and Freedoms in Georgia,121 the Public Defender pointed out the problem of dispatching correspondence. Namely, prisoners were unable to obtain registration numbers of sent letters and, therefore, unable to verify whether their letters were registered and dispatched to a recipient. Dispatching correspondence is an acute problem in penitentiary establishments nos. 2, 6 and 8 despite the fact that letters are given to social workers; prisoners are unaware as to what happens to their correspondence.122 According to prisoners, they are not given any written document that would confirm the fact of handing correspondence to a social worker. It is difficult to establish whether a social worker handed a correspondence to a prisoner since there is no procedure in place that would confirm this fact by a written document. Considering this, the Public Defender recommended to the Minister of Corrections to take all possible measures to ensure that, when a social worker receives or dispatches an open letter, a document is drawn in two copies which are stamped and the following information is entered in the presence of the prisoner: a) the name and surname of the letter’s author; b) the name and surname of the social worker receiving the letter; c) the date of handing the letter; d) the recipient of the letter; and e) the number of pages. Both copies should be signed by the prisoner and the social worker; one copy should be given to the prisoner and the other should stay with the social worker. This recommendation has not been fulfilled. 2.3.12. EQUALITY For creating a penitentiary system that would be based on the principle of equality and prevents discrimination, it is necessary to identify the special needs of concrete groups and satisfy those needs. In this regard, there are certain challenges in penitentiary establishments, inter alia, the stigma associated with the LGBT community, psychological violence, their isolation and marginalisation from to telephone conversation was restricted for one month in different periods (in total amounting to three-month restriction). 120 Report to the Georgian Government on the visit to Georgia, carried out by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) from 1 to 11 December 2014, para. 119, CPT/Inf (2015) 42. 121 The 2016 Parliamentary Report of the Public Defender of Georgia on the Situation of Protection of Human Rights and Freedoms in Georgia, pp. 158-164. 122 For instance, one of the convicted persons insisted that a letter was given to the establishment’s social worker for dispatching it. However, no document was received confirming the dispatch or any response. The examination of this issue by the Public Defender revealed that this prisoner’s letter had not been dispatched from the administrative office in charge of communication. 42