MONITORING PLACES OF DETENTION : A PRACTICAL GUIDE 17 Apart from domestic visiting mechanisms, the guide could also be a useful tool for bodies more generally interested in issues surrounding deprivation of liberty, such as international and national nongovernmental organisations, international and regional organisations and their field offices. Finally, our intention is for the information provided in the guide also to be useful to the authorities responsible for, and personnel working in places of detention, as it is they who will have to cooperate with the monitoring bodies. Objectives of the guide The overall objective of the guide is to promote effective domestic visiting bodies, newly established or existing ones, by increasing their professionalism and thus their impact in preventing torture and improving conditions of detention. Specific objectives are: ■ To provide concrete advice and recommendations on the methodology of visits through the different steps (preparation, implementation and follow-up); ■ To promote cooperation between different domestic visiting bodies, as well as between national and international bodies; ■ To present in a practical, thematic way the different international standards relevant to monitoring places of detention; ■ To provide information on the content of the OPCAT, which for the first time in an international human rights treaty sets out clear criteria and guarantees for the independence and effective functioning of “national preventive mechanisms”; ■ In so doing, to assist in preventing mechanisms being set up in a way that contradicts the OPCAT principles.