of residence of the prisoner's family members should be considered when allocating prisoners to penitentiary institutions, in order to ensure the unrestricted enjoyment of the right of the prisoner to receive visitors. These recommendations have not been implemented. The third recommendation concerned the issue of correspondence in Establishments Nos. 2, 6 and 8. In particular, prisoners were not aware whether their letters had been registered or sent to the relevant addressees. According to the prisoners, they are not given any written document proving that the letter was handed over to the social worker. As a solution to this problem, the recommendation of the Special Preventive Group was to draw up a document in duplicate when receiving/delivering an open letter by the social worker; the document should be stamped, should be drawn up in the presence of the prisoner and should contain the following information: a) first and last names of the author of the letter; B) first and last names of the social worker; C) date of delivery of the letter; D) addressee of the letter; E) number of papers. Both documents should be signed by both the prisoner and the social worker and each of them should keep a copy of the document. This recommendation has not been implemented. 3 recommendations to the Ministry of Justice of Georgia concerned the improvements in the working conditions of the staff of the penitentiary institution. In particular, according to the first recommendation, the Public Defender requested that professional burnout trainings be conducted for all the employees of penitentiary facilities in 2019 and 2020. The second recommendation concerned the remuneration of all the employees of penitentiary facilities for their overtime work in 2019. In the third recommendation, the Public Defender requested that all the employees of the penitentiary facilities be given the opportunity to fully enjoy their right to take a leave. These recommendations have been endorsed by the Parliament of Georgia and have been reflected in its resolution. Despite requesting information from the Ministry of Justice, the National Preventive Mechanism has not received a reply from the Ministry on the situation of implementation of the recommendation. Consequently, it is impossible to assess the implementation of the recommendation. 2.2. Violence-free environment 2.2.1. Abuse of prisoners by staff Physical violence With regard to physical violence against prisoners by staff, the monitoring shows that only few cases of physical violence were reported in closed institutions,48 such as slapping and hitting in the chest. However, according to several inmates, there is a prisoner in Establishment No. 2, who physically 48 During the monitoring visits, the Special Preventive Group received information about 3 cases of physical violence committed by staff in Establishments Nos. 2 and 8. According to letter No. 371652/01 of the Special Penitentiary Service of December 13, 2019, the Investigation Department’s Western Division launched an investigation into one case of alleged physical abuse of the convict by staff in 2019. 32