Council to provide its advice and expertise on this topic. In its reply, the Human Rights Advisory Council stated that, in addition to physical protection of the police, mental support is also part of the work environment of a modern police force. The Human Rights Advisory Council stated that supervision and counselling have been offered by the Federal Ministry of the Interior since 2012 and is still in the development stage. At the present time, the Federal Ministry of the Interior only offers supervision and counselling to teams and groups. For individual support, the psychological service (not yet nationwide) and peer support are available. Professional debriefings after deployments constitute a third instrument for providing support to employees in stressful situations. Psychology lessons are part of inservice training. Expertise of the Human Rights Advisory Council The Human Rights Advisory Council was of the opinion that supervision and counselling, as an instrument that supports a professional course of action, can make a contribution to encourage law enforcement officers to act in a professional manner oriented towards protection of human rights. Therefore, the Council proposed the development of a wide-scale offering of supervision and counselling and measures to encourage increased use thereof. Since there are arguments for and against mandatory supervision and counselling, the Human Rights Advisory Council believed that a recommendation in favour of these mandatory measures was currently premature. Encouragement of supervision and counselling Following the comments of the Human Rights Advisory Council regarding the development of an incentive system, the NPM proposed that the Federal Ministry of the Interior introduce an offer of individual supervision and counselling from outside. In addition, further sensitising heads of police stations to the issue would encourage use and acceptance of the offer of supervision and counselling. Offering individual supervision and counselling from outside As of the editorial deadline of this report, the NPM had not received a definitive reply to its proposals from the Federal Ministry of the Interior.  Individual supervision and counselling from outside should be actively offered to law enforcement officers.  Heads of police stations should be sensitised to encourage supervision and counselling. 2.6.5.2. Structurally partitioned toilet facilities in detention areas at police stations The NPM approached the Human Rights Advisory Council to clarify whether separation of the toilet area from the detention area should generally be recommended even for short-term detentions in police custody (see chapter 2.6.2.4 regarding sanitary facilities in inmate cells during long-term detention). In its statement, the Human Rights Advisory Council pointed out that an assessment of the impact on human rights primarily depends on the length of detention: the shorter the period of detention, the less Length of detention matters 138