Report of the HRD on the activities of the National Preventive Mechanism in Poland in 2011 a) Treatment The most severe violations found by the Mechanism during its visits to youth care centres and youth sociotherapy centres consisted in the staff using psychological and/or physical violence against the juvenile residents of the centres. In the Youth Care Centre in Antoniewo, juveniles complained that two tutors sometimes pulled juveniles’ ears to calm them down, slapped them in the face when they had a lot of negative marks, beat them in the back when they entered the bathroom in a t-shirt and swore when they were irritated. The half of juveniles interviewed at the Youth Care Centre in Warsaw said that tutors yelled, used vulgar language, bullied them and scuffled with them or punished them by hitting them on the back. Furthermore, the interviewed juvenile residents of the Youth Care Centre in Kolonia Szczerbacka reported instances of physical violence used against them by an employee of the Centre who slapped them in the face and often threatened to beat them. The juveniles at the Youth Care Centre No 2 in Warsaw complained about a tutor who raised his voice and criticized them heavily. The juveniles did not want to file an official complaint. The directors of Youth Care Centres in Antoniewo and Youth Care Centre No 7 in Warsaw informed that they had undertaken measures to verify the accusations, analyse the situation and implement measures among employees to prevent abuse in the relations between tutors and juvenile residents. Such measures included an analysis of interpersonal relations by means of a survey among the residents, tutor, parents, self-assessment sheets, observation of behaviour of juveniles and tutors, a meeting with representatives of the Student Board. All forms of violence are regarded as unacceptable by the NPM and constitute inhuman and degrading treatment. In some establishments, instances were reported of physical and psychological violence exercised by juveniles with higher standing in the informal hierarchy against the “weaker” ones. The juveniles complained about being bullied, pushed, insulted and ridiculed by their colleagues (Youth Care Centre in Antoniewo) and claimed that one of them was instructed by teachers to “control others”, i.e. he pushed them and scuffled with them or used other forms of physical violence to force them to behave in a desired way (Youth Sociotherapy Centre No 5 in Warsaw, Youth Care Centre in Kalety). The National Preventive Mechanism recommended to take actions aimed at preventing the subculture phenomenon among the juveniles. The CPT clearly states that all forms of ill-treatment, including verbal abuse, are not acceptable and will be the subject of severe sanctions152. Discussion on appropriate treatment of juveniles should also cover the fact that the annex specifying the rules of granting scores to juveniles residing in the Youth Sociotherapy Centre in Ustka contained deprecating statements, such as 0 points for personal culture – the juvenile is a slob, slummock (...). According to the National Preventive Mechanism, such statements are stigmatizing and should not be included in the scoring system for juveniles. Another statement in the said annex that raises doubts is the comment referring  See: § 88 of the Report CPT/Inf (2011) 20. 152 84