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of detention; and accelerate the measures to achieve adequate living space per inmate
in accordance with international standards;
(d)
Increase the budgetary allocations for basic amenities provided to
detainees, such as: access to adequate hygiene, including bathing and toilet facilities,
functioning sewage and access to water; adequate heating, ventilation, natural and
artificial light; an adequate quantity and quality of food and drinking water; and
appropriate cell furnishings and bedding. The State party should also ensure that
purposeful activities and exercise are available to all detained persons, including those
detained in solitary confinement;
(e)
Allow independent monitoring bodies, including the Ombudsman acting
as the national preventive mechanism under the Optional Protocol to the Convention,
as well as other independent and impartial mechanisms, including international
bodies and civil society organizations, to carry out regular unannounced visits to all
places of detention, including police detention units, to meet in private with detained
persons, to receive complaints from inmates about their conditions of detention and
treatment, to ensure that inmates are not subjected to reprisals, and to provide
effective follow-up to such complaints;
(f)
Enhance efforts to introduce non-custodial measures in the penal
sanction system as alternatives to detention, in line with the United Nations Standard
Minimum Rules for Non-custodial Measures (the Tokyo Rules);
(g)
Increase the number of qualified prison staff; provide continuous
training, including on the provisions of the Convention and on prison management,
including the prevention of inter-prisoner violence; take steps to abolish 24-hour shifts
for prison staff; and conduct prompt and independent investigations and prosecutions
of State officials responsible for corruption in the prison system;
(h)
Promptly, thoroughly and impartially investigate all incidents of death in
custody; make the results of those investigations available to the public; prosecute
those responsible for violations of the Convention resulting in such deaths and punish
them accordingly, if convicted; ensure independent forensic examinations in all cases
of death in custody; provide autopsy reports to the family members of the deceased
and, if requested, permit them to commission independent autopsies; and ensure that
the courts in the State party accept the results of independent forensic examinations
and autopsies as evidence in criminal and civil cases;
(i)
Improve the quality of health services provided to inmates; conduct
prompt medical screening upon entry into detention facilities and after transfers, in
order to, inter alia, detect and prevent the spread of infectious diseases; recruit more
qualified medical doctors; appropriately maintain medical files and registers,
including those used for recording injuries; establish rules on how to deal with
requests of inmates for private medical assistance; facilitate referrals to outside
specialist services, including for psychiatric and dental care; and put an end to the
handcuffing or otherwise immobilizing of prisoners referred to outside medical care.
Treatment of persons in social institutions, including those with mental disabilities
15.
The Committee remains concerned at reports:
(a)
That persons with mental and psychosocial disabilities in State and municipal
medical institutional settings continue to be deprived of legal capacity and do not enjoy
adequate procedural and substantive legal safeguards and procedural guarantees to protect
themselves from disproportionate restrictions and enjoy the right to mental and physical
integrity;
(b)
That there is a high incidence of inappropriate or unnecessary non-consensual
institutionalization; that persons deprived of their legal capacity have no recourse to means
to challenge violations of their rights; that there is no independent inspection or monitoring
mechanism for mental health institutions; and that such institutions continue to be located
in remote areas;
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