Report of the Human Rights Defender on the activities of the National Preventive Mechanism in Poland in 2013 2.3. Areas requiring improvement 2.3.1. Treatment The representatives of the National Preventive Mechanism received reports from prisoners in 3 penitentiary units57 about violation of their bodily integrity by the Prison Service officers. In all three units, the inmates did not want to undertake actions to alert the law enforcement authorities and, therefore, the information they provided was treated as “signals” of alleged inappropriate behaviour. The directors of visited units were requested to investigate those cases. The representatives of the Mechanism also analysed the treatment of persons with disabilities by prison authorities. In several units, they found cases of inappropriate treatment of such persons which consisted in placing a person on a  wheelchair in a  cell not adjusted to his needs58; placing such person in a  cell adjusted for the disabled, but on a higher floor from which the inmate could not move on his own to e.g. prison yard59; and the disabled persons being forced to “buy themselves out” of the obligation to clean the cell by paying their inmates with cigarettes and coffee60. New problems related to broadly understood treatment of prisoners include the requirement of wearing prison uniforms by inmates escorted for medical consultation to civil health care service centres.61 The representatives of the National Preventive Mechanism emphasize that, pursuant to Article 111 § 2 and Article 216a § 1 of the Executive Penal Code, dressing inmates in prison uniforms is allowed only as an exception to the rule which is to use their own clothes. The requirement to wear prison uniforms when visiting public places unrelated to the judicial system leads to unjustified stigmatisation of the inmates, in particular in the case of remand prisoners who are always presumed innocent. The right of inmates to wear their own clothing or other inconspicuous clothing when outside the place of deprivation of liberty is formulated i.a. in the Standard Minimum Pre-Trial Detention Centre in Białystok, Pre-Trial Detention Centre in Bydgoszcz, Prison in Jastrzębie-Zdrój. 58 Pre-Trial Detention Centre in Bytom, Pre-Trial Detention Centre in Białystok, Pre-Trial Detention Centre in Bydgoszcz, Pre-Trial Detention Centre in Częstochowa, Pre-Trial Detention Centre in Lubań, External Ward in Pionki, External Ward in Przywary, Prison No 1 Wrocław, Prison in Goleniów. 59 Pre-Trial Detention Centre in Świdnica. 60 External Ward in Przywary. 61 The said practice was found in: Pre-Trial Detention Centre in Bytom, Prison No 1 in Wrocław, PreTrial Detention Centre in Lubań, Pre-Trial Detention Centre in Świdnica, External Ward in Grodzisk Mazowiecki, External Ward in Przywary. 57 34