Section two Focus on detention issues Isolation – guidance for NPM monitoring bodies In January 2017, the NPM published its guidance on isolation in detention. The guidance provides a comprehensive framework that NPM members should apply when examining isolation in detention, which has the potential to give rise to ill-treatment. It aims to improve the consistency of monitoring of the use of isolation and allow NPM members to identify and promote good and improved practice. The guidance and its use in practice will provide a basis on which to formulate recommendations to strengthen policy. NPM members continue to work to incorporate the guidance into their inspection and monitoring work. This has included: • HMI Prisons using the guidance when scoping human rights standards for its revision of Expectations: Criteria for assessing the treatment of and conditions for men in prisons and Expectations for immigration detention: Criteria for assessing the conditions for and treatment of immigration detainees; • discussion of the guidance at a meeting of IMB London Chairs which considered the use of segregation and the role of IMBs in segregation reviews; and • ICVA disseminating the guidance to all schemes to consider in situations when detainees are held for extended periods where they are suspected of concealing drugs. ICVA will incorporate the guidance into its training on this issue in 2018–19. 19 Transitions and pathways In 2015, NPM members agreed to focus joint efforts on examining the pathways between different detention settings for those with mental health needs, and the transitions from child to adult custody in criminal justice settings.19 Given that NPM members usually examine treatment and conditions in detention by looking at an individual establishment, they were keen to explore issues relating to the treatment of detainees during movements from one establishment to another that this approach did not capture. The NPM wanted to identify and document the risks that moves between places of detention pose for detainees and how they are treated during these moves. The work was completed last year and the findings were documented in our 2016–17 annual report. In 2017–18, the findings from the joint work were widely shared with stakeholders, parliamentarians and policy makers working on relevant issues, including the Chair of the Independent Review of the Mental Health Act 1983 (Professor Sir Simon Wessely). The next phase of this work will be to draft a series of short briefing notes highlighting the key findings and recommendations to disseminate the results of NPM’s work more extensively. Ill-treatment in detention In June 2017, the NPM and the Human Rights Implementation Centre at the University of Bristol co-hosted a roundtable on complaints and capturing data on ill-treatment in detention in the UK. The roundtable brought together NPM members, academics, NGOs and government officials to discuss how The transitions work was led by the NPM Children and Young People’s sub-group, with contributions from the Children’s Commissioner for England, Criminal Justice Inspectorate Northern Ireland and HM Inspectorate of Prisons. The NPM was only able to focus on penal custody for children in this exercise. 21