institution, a police detention centre, a psychiatric facility, a retirement and nursing home, a child and youth welfare facility and a facility for persons with disabilities. On the last day, Silvia Casale (criminologist, former Chairperson of the SPT and the CPT), Veronica Pimenoff (psychiatrist, CPT expert), Margarete Suzuko Osterfeld (psychiatrist, SPT and German NPM expert), Jean-Sébastien Blanc (APT), Markus Jaeger (Council of Europe) and Michael Neurauter (legal expert, department head at the CPT) analysed the information collected. The international experts agreed that they did not only contribute their experience as “shadows”, but also profited themselves from shadowing the commissions. The heads of commissions and the AOB emphasised the necessity of continuing to work together on establishing uniform standards, especially where no standards at all have as yet been established. It was also deemed beneficial for the functioning of the NPM if AOB employees would occasionally participate in commission visits as well. Structured feedback and the written analyses provided by the experts and by the ETC are viewed as enrichment and will provide helpful orientation towards making additional progress in the organisational development process of the NPM. 1.5. Monitoring and control visits in numbers In the year under review, the commissions completed a total of 501 visits. In 439 cases, the visits and observations were unannounced, in 62 cases they were announced in advance. Thus, the general procedure is to make unannounced visits. In 2015, the average duration of a visit was six and a half hours. The six commissions visited 445 facilities and institutions across Austria. As was the case in previous reporting years, the commissions focused on the far more numerous institutions that fall within the category of so called “less traditional places of detention”. This included 93 visits to institutions that are dedicated solely to persons with disabilities. 445 visits to facilities and institutions In 56 cases Austria-wide, the commissions also observed the conduct of authorities empowered by the state to exercise direct administrative power and to carry out coercive measures. The largely unannounced visits by the commissions have both a preventive purpose and a preventive effect. Simply the fact that persons, who have been deprived of liberty based on a directive by courts or by administrative, medical, nursing/caretaking or pedagogical authorities, have the opportunity to speak in confidence with independent experts of the NPM and to call attention to their situation can protect them against violence and abuse and/or identify Interviews are of central importance 11