Introduction The present research has been carried out in the broader framework of actions envisaged by the project “Implementation of a forced return monitoring system” funded by the National Guarantor for the rights of persons detained or deprived of liberty through the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) 2014/2020. As known, since 2016 the National Guarantor has carried out its mandate as national authority for the monitoring of forced returns under the European Directive 115/2008, a mandate conferred also in view of the function of the National Guarantor as national mechanism for the prevention of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, which allows it full and free access to all places where people are deprived of personal liberty. For this reason the monitoring of return operations carried out with police escort, which are therefore forced, is a core activity of the National Guarantor. Nevertheless, the aforementioned AMIF project has enabled the National Guarantor to carry out its mandate more effectively thanks to the resources it had made available. Thanks to the project, in fact, the Guarantor, from 2017 to today, has for instance been able to benefit from the contribution of experts and specialists in the field of migration law, protection of rights at international level, protection of health vulnerabilities, and cultural mediators who have contributed to raising the quality of the observations made during the monitoring of return operations, strengthening the institution’s wealth of expertise. It has also been possible to launch internal training initiatives for the preparation and updating of the monitors, as well as to create workshops open to the main stakeholders, including the State Police, responsible for organizing and carrying out forced returns, but also other institutional subjects, and representatives of organized civil society. These initiatives have allowed to share and expand the wealth of knowledge and skills concerning forced returns while also strengthening social awareness on this delicate area of deprivation of liberty. In this regard, the constant need for the National Guarantor to interact with external subjects in carrying out such an important mandate, as well as the inherent international dimension of return operations, has inspired the need for research into practices and best practices in monitoring in Europe by bodies that are counterparts of the National Guarantor or charged at national level with the same task. The Fondazione Ismu was thus identified to provide the methodological support service for the project, and entrusted with the task of carrying out a comparative analysis of regulations, approaches, methods and techniques adopted by the institutions responsible for monitoring forced returns in the European countries that agreed to participate in the research. The foundation highlights similarities and differences in the work of the different monitoring bodies and at the same time aims to identify critical issues and best practices in protecting the fundamental rights of people during return operations. The research considers and compares different elements that tend to appear recurrently, and tries to analyse respective practices: the use of force and means of coercion, the necessary notice period that allows persons to be repatriated to adequately prepare for the return operation, the availability of cultural mediators, social workers, psychologists or medical staff during operations, the possibility of lodging a complaint following a forced return. Also, a section of the analysis looks more closely at the work of the monitors, with respect to the criteria for choosing the operations to be monitored, the use or lack of standard tools for observation such as checklists or templates and, moreover, a central issue, the drafting of monitoring reports and related recommendations, including the degree of acceptance by the authorities to which they are addressed. In essence, these are key questions to be addressed with an approach capable to go beyond national boundaries and therefore able to provide a valuable contribution to the complex system regulating forced returns and its actors, also