A/HRC/25/60/Add.1 human rights. According to statistics received, the Bureau has 433 cases pending. Between January 2011 and June 2013 it investigated and found guilty 108 officers who were dismissed from the service, 132 officers who were reduced in rank and 239 who received a warning. 2. Prisons Service 15. The overall responsibility for correctional facilities in Ghana, for the implementation of judicial decisions and for the execution of sentences lies with the Prisons Service under the Ministry of the Interior. The main national legal instrument regulating the treatment of prisoners is section 2, paragraph (a), of the Prisons Service Act, 1972 (NRCD 46), which reiterates article 15 of the 1992 Constitution. Section 25 of the Prisons Service Act stipulates that “any prison officer who in any way tortures, or subjects to cruelty, any prisoner shall be guilty of an offence and liable on conviction to imprisonment not exceeding five years”. 16. Engagement with the then Acting Director-General of the Prisons Service was a positive element of the visit. She stated that a shift in attitude was under way, from a purely punitive penal system to a more modern approach to the reform, rehabilitation and reintegration of inmates, in accordance with international human rights standards. The majority of the detainees interviewed by the Special Rapporteur had no complaints about their treatment by prison officials, although they sometimes alleged ill-treatment by the police. 17. Of the 43 prisons in Ghana, the Special Rapporteur visited 9: Ankaful maximum security prison, Nsawam medium security prison, Kumasi and Sekondi central prisons, Kumasi female prison, Ankaful main camp prison, Ankaful open camp prison, the Contagious Diseases Centre and the Senior Correctional Facility for juveniles. Many of the prisons are decaying forts or former slave warehouses built during the colonial era and transformed into prisons after independence; they are in urgent need of extensive repairs. 18. The Special Rapporteur observed that, despite the overcrowding, the remand (pretrial), convicted and death row prisoners are for the most part held in separate sections of the prison and follow different regimes. However, at Sekondi prison he did noted that some juveniles were being held in very overcrowded conditions in the adult remand section. The Government advised that warrants do not state the age of the prisoner, but that investigations are conducted if there is a suspicion of a juvenile being held with adults and if it is established that he or she is a minor, he or she is transferred to the Senior Correctional Centre for juveniles. 19. Owing to the level of overcrowding, the ratio of prison staff to prisoners is severely distorted. In Kumasi prison, one of the most densely overpopulated prisons, the officerinmate ratio is 1:20 rather than the recommended 1:4 (the national average is 1:7). Those conditions cause heightened tensions. Because of the lack of guards, there appears to be a practice of assigning selected prisoners to have authority over other prisoners in their cell or block. 20. In Kumasi and Sekondi prisons in particular, the Special Rapporteur observed prisoner-on-prisoner violence being committed by certain prisoners designated by the authorities as “black coats”. Those prison leaders exercise a high degree of authority within the prison population. The Special Rapporteur examined several detainees in the two prisons and found three cases of clear physical evidence of recent and severe caning. The testimonies he received from detainees indicated that caning is sometimes used as a physical punishment by prison guards, but is most often carried out by prisoners under the 5