Georgia, which means that there were 242 prisoners per 100,000 population.69 According to this data, as in previous years, Georgia still ranked 3rd in Europe. During the reporting period, preventive visits to penitentiary establishments revealed that the imbalance caused by the large number of prisoners and the small number of staff70 in the facilities could not ensure a safe, secure and orderly environment in the establishments. The problem of overcrowding exists in both semi-open and closed penitentiary facilities. The Public Defender and the Special Preventive Group reiterate that the situation in large semi-open penitentiary establishments is generally unfavorable in terms of maintaining order and security. So, for example, in the semi-open facility N17, during the visit of a special preventive group,71 1700 convicts were serving their sentences, 100 prisoners per 1 employee of the Legal Regime Department, which is a big challenge in terms of order and security.72 Also, for example, during the visit to the facility N12,73 there were 250 inmates in the semi-open section and only 3 staff members were on duty. Defendants and convicts are placed together in penitentiary establishments and detention facilities, which often leads to conflicts. International standards74 and the requirement of the Imprisonment Code to separate defendants from convicts are been violated.75 Due to the overcrowding in large closed facilities,76 the administration focuses entirely on the placement of inmates who are in dispute with each other in different cells or wings. Because of this, other issues remain unnoticed during the allocation of prisoners, e.g. prisoner’s personal characteristics, habits, behavior, risks. As a result, prisoners of different categories and worldviews have to live in the same cell, which often leads to disagreements between prisoners in confined spaces. The reason for the dispute is mainly household issues, unauthorized use of a prisoner's phone card by one prisoner, request/seizure of cigarettes and extortion of money. The cause of confrontation is sometimes the problem of religious beliefs, ethnicity, and language barriers to communication. The Public Defender believes that, both in terms of security and order, as well as in terms of infection control, large penitentiary establishments should be transformed into institutions with small and balanced infrastructure, as envisaged by the Penitentiary and Crime Prevention Systems Development Strategy and Council of Europe Study on the Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Prison populations - Interim Assessment p. 16-17. < https://bit.ly/2MVB9Qr > [last visited: 11.02.2021]. 70 Legal regime and security department staff 71 Monitoring visits to the facility N17 took place on 1 April and 7 May 2020. 72 Inside the facility, there were 50 employees on barracks regime. 34 of legal regimes and 7 of security department employees (including the heads of this department) as well as 9 managers of the central administration (director, deputy directors and heads of departments). Employees are on duty day and night. There were 17 employees of the Legal Regime Department on the shift. 73 Monitoring visits to the facility N12 took place on 26-27 November 2020. 74 According to the UN General Assembly Resolution 70/175 (Rules of Nelson Mandela), adopted by the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, defendants and convicts must be placed separately. (Rule N11 (b)). 75 Part 2 of Article 9 of the Imprisonment Code. 76 As of December 3-4, 2020, there were approximately 2,400 inmates in Penitentiary Establishment N8; according to the data of the National Statistics Office, there were about 900 prisoners in December in the N2 penitentiary facility. 69 41