OPEN RESEARCH BEHIND CLOSED DOORS staff who ensured compliance with hygiene and safety measures. In some institutions, persons concerned could go on day leave for work and exit the institution together with staff, especially if they were already close to release. After the first lockdown, long-term prison leaves were granted again. However, institutions and even wards used different strategies. In Italy, relaxations in REMs were reduced but not entirely suspended. In prisons, to lower the number of the prison population, existing measures (i.e., home detention and further relaxations in semi-freedom) were endorsed by a Decree. During the pandemic, PROMISING PR AC TICE around 1.000 detainees in semi-freedom (i.e., In Italy, some courts are the persons spend the day outside the prison paying compensations (or for work or educational purposes and re-enter at granting early release) for night or for the weekend) have been authorized cases of detention in viola- to stay also the night and weekend at home, as tion of Art. 3 ECHR (pro- long as they had a home. Other relaxation meahibition of torture and sures were suspended or limited. Overall, the ill-treatment) even when halt or reduction of relaxations might lead to a detention conditions are more extended deprivation of liberty, as often these are prerequisites for (conditional) release. due to the pandemic. In Austria and Germany, a person concerned is heard ex officio by a court, whether their deprivation of liberty is still necessary. In general, these hearings took place on time and were carried out via video conference.36 In Austria, this usually meant that the person concerned and the institution representatives joined the hearing via video from the institution while judges, prosecutors and lawyers assembled in the courtroom. While some judges and some lawyers perceived video conferencing as a good option, most interviewees and persons concerned experienced this format as inadequate and having a negative impact on the outcome of the hearing. One reason mentioned is the low quality of technical equipment and internet connection within the institutions, which did not allow the persons concerned to follow the hearing well or see the judicial representatives. In Germany, the representatives of the institution and the person concerned had to share a screen and camera in some cases, with the consequence that the legal representative and the judge could not see all the participants at once. 6