Rights behind bars: Access to justice for victims of violent crime suffered in pre-trial or immigration detention Methodology Fair Trials and its partners conducted local desk-based research on the legal and institutional framework available for victims in general, and for victims in immigration and pre-trial detention specifically, in six jurisdictions: Belgium, Croatia, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden. This drew on legislation, administrative guidelines, internal rules, secondary law and case law; as well as on news items and academic research. In each Member State, partners also conducted interviews with key stakeholders, including (where possible) victims themselves, lawyers, Detention Staff, professionals working in detention (e.g. probation services, social services, health care professionals) and NGO staff. These interviews helped partners compare their desk research with the reality and practice of detention. Collecting data was challenging. First, there is very limited quantitative data available with respect to occurrences of violent crime in detention and its treatment by national authorities (criminal or administrative investigations into allegations of violence and the outcomes of prosecution or administrative proceedingsy). Secondly, in some Member States, civil society organisations’ and lawyers’ access to Detention Centres (see defined terms) is systematically obstructed, which inevitably limited the accessibility of information. Finally, stakeholders working in Detention Centres, who may witness or hold information about violence in detention, were not always willing to talk about their experiences for fear of retaliation from colleagues or of the impact on their employment by the administration of pre-trial22 or immigration the administration of Detention Centres (“Detention Administration”). In each of the six Member States, roundtable meetings were organised in early 2019, bringing together key local stakeholders to discuss the challenges that victims of violent crime in detention face in accessing and enforcing Victims’ Rights, and possible solutions. Participants included representatives from the national authorities in charge of pre-trial and immigration detention, prison and probation authorities, prison directors, detention monitoring bodies, civil society organisations working with migrants and pre-trial detainees, victims support organisations and criminal defence and immigration lawyers. Following the roundtables, each partner organisation produced a short national guidance note, summarising the challenges they identified together with recommendations to improve detainees’ ability to exercise Victims’ Rights.23 In September 2019, two regional policy meetings were organised in The Hague with participants from 15 Member States, and various international organisations, on pre-trial detention and immigration detention respectively. Participants included representatives from Ombudsperson offices, National Preventive Mechanisms (“NPMs”), governments, criminal defence and immigration lawyers, academics, victims’ organisations and other EU and international experts. The aim of the meetings was to discuss implementation issues surrounding access to Victims’ Rights in detention and to compare the findings in respect of the six Member States examined to that in other Member States, in order to identify possible recommendations. This report draws on all the work described above as well as from additional international and comparative publications and reports in the field. If you are interested in learning more about the project or have any comments on the contents of this report, please do not hesitate to contact us. 23 For further information about the national research and guidance notes, please contact the relevant national partners. 15