35 General recommendations for remedying the identified shortcomings The inadequately equipped detention units should be upgraded and made compliant with the applicable regulations and standards. The Administration for Enforcement of Penal Sanctions should take the necessary activities to amend the Bylaw on Enforcement of Detention Measures, which would contain detailed provisions to allow detainees to spend the spare time during the day outside their cells, in communal areas with other detainees, unless they have been segregated from them under court orders and to allow detainees to work and to participate in social and cultural activities. Detainees should be allowed to work and to participate in social and cultural activities. The necessary activities should be undertaken to ensure that female detainees are not placed in de facto solitary confinement due to their low numbers. When assigning detainees to dormitories, the severity of the crime for which they are indicted should be taken into account. Detainees with severe disabilities in detention units should be provided with appropriate accommodation, treatment and rehabilitation. 6.3. Enforcement of penal sanctions In the course of 2014, the NPM conducted two scheduled visits to penal and correctional facilities and a visit to the Juvenile Correctional Facility in Kruševac. In early 2014, a Report with Recommendations was issued to the Juvenile Penal and Correctional Facility in Valjevo, which pertained to a visit conducted in late 2013. The said reports contained a total of 114 recommendations. Of that number, the competent authorities have implemented 51 recommendations, 25 need a follow-up, while 38 recommendations have not been implemented. The Republic of Serbia has enacted the new Law on Enforcement of Penal Sanctions101 and its implementing instruments have been enacted, as well as the Law on Enforcement of NonCustodial Sanctions and Measures.102 The Action Plan on Implementation of the Strategy for Development of the System for Enforcement of Criminal Sanctions in the Republic of Serbia by 2020103 has also been passed and a network of offices for alternative sanctions has been formed. Although certain facilities have been upgraded during the reporting period to meet the applicable standards relating to material conditions and other living arrangements, many rooms in penal and correctional facilities remain dilapidated. Large penal and correctional facilities (“Zabela” in Požarevac and facilities in Sremska Mitrovica and Niš) remain overcrowded. Accommodation conditions and other living arrangements for convicts and persons charged with misdemeanours at certain prison facilities still do not comply with the applicable standards. There is only one penal and correctional facility for incarcerated women and one juvenile correctional facility for the incarceration and correctional commitment of juvenile offenders. The fact that there is only one institution where juveniles are incarcerated and one where they are placed in the juvenile corrections system (in Valjevo and Krusevac respectively), both of which are overpopulated, creates fertile ground for informal systems which undermine the effects of correctional sessions. This also prejudices the principle that persons should serve their sentences as close to their place of residence as possible, thus making regular contact with family members and close persons more difficult. The principle of incarceration as close to the place of residence Official Gazette of RS No. 55/14. Official Gazette of RS No. 55/14. 103 Resolution the Government 05 No. 021-8527/14 of 7 August 2014. 101 102