Report of the HRD on the activities of the National Preventive Mechanism in Poland in 2011 • Limiting the presence of Police officers during the provision of medical services to detainees to situations of justified concern about safety of medical personnel, or to places where medical services are provided not equipped with appropriate technical safeguards thus raising concerns that a detainee might escape; • Police officers on duty in PDRs paying attention to the necessity of making diligent documentation of medical services provided to detainees by physicians. c) Right to information about the legal rights The National Preventive Mechanism verified – on the basis of information provided to its representatives by detainees staying in PDRs during the visits – whether detainees knew their rights. Discussing the results of this verification, the Mechanism stresses that in the majority of rooms for detained persons or persons brought to sober up, visited in 2011, the detainees’ knowledge of the Rules of procedure concerning the stay of persons placed in rooms for detained persons or persons brought to sober up remained an issue. Among the 27 Police units visited, some irregularities connected with the realisation of this right were noted in as many as 25. On the basis of the activities conducted, the representatives of the Mechanism found that detainees had an opportunity to familiarise themselves with the Rules of procedure only at the moment of being accepted to the PDR. Moreover, the Rules of procedure were displayed in places where the detainees were unable to read them (duty officer’s room, PDR’s corridor, deposit room). The stress that a detained person undergoes when being placed in a PDR weakens his/her concentration, perception and ability to assess the situation. Therefore the NPM recommends that each detained person should have constant access to the Rules of procedure. The document should be displayed in a place accessible to and visible for all the detained persons, so that reading it would not depend on the decision of Police officers or on any other factors. In the opinion of the Mechanism, the best place to display the Rules of procedure are rooms for the detained. In Warszawa VI PDR, the representatives of the NPM encountered the practice of hanging a copy of the Rules of procedure on the inside of the doors to rooms for detainees. An equally effective method of presenting its contents was used in Elbląg PDR, where copies of the Rules of procedure were always given to detainees in the rooms where they were held. Copies of the Rules of procedure in foreign languages were lacking only in one of the visited units (Ustrzyki Dolne PDR). The remaining units possessed translations prepared by the Transport Division of the Prevention Bureau of the General Police Headquarters in cooperation with Foreign Language Department of the Łódź University and Prevention Division of Voivodeship Police Headquarters in Łódź. 58