Report on the Performance of Activities of the National Preventive Mechanism for 2015 solitary confinement. In Split County Prison, a prisoner spent a total of 119 hours and 40 minutes in a specially secured room free of dangerous objects, with only one interruption of 20 minutes and one of 5 minutes, which is unacceptable. Furthermore, no later than six hours after the beginning of execution of this measure a physician’s consent for its implementation is required. Given that the measures generally last less than six hours, the physician’s consent is often not obtained, especially in penal institutions that do not have a physician among its permanent staff. There was even one case when the physician consented over the telephone, without any examination of or direct contact with the prisoner. No standards have been prescribed for specially secured rooms free of dangerous objects, so the conditions in them vary. For example, in Lepoglava State Prison, the surface area of this room is 2.6 m2, which is below any legal or international standards. Despite the recommendation of CPT to the Republic of Croatia given in its report in 2013 about providing daylight in such rooms, this has not been done in any of the penal institutions except in Sisak County Prison. This situation is usually explained by heads of the prisons by referring to security reasons, but in Sisak the window is placed on a high position so that it poses no security risk whatsoever. There are penal institutions that do not even have such a room, for example Bjelovar and Varaždin County Prisons, where in situations of incidents, the prisoner is brought to the emergency medical ward, and after that to the prison hospital, which is also an example of good practice. The measure of restraining is not entered into the records regularly, especially after the use of means of coercion, which is something that COPSD pointed out to all penal institutions, based on our recommendation. In some cases, in addition to the measure of restraining being implemented, the prisoner is also isolated in a separate room, which de facto represents the implementation of the special measure of isolation, too, which is not entered into the records. Solitary confinement, the only special measure for maintenance of order and security the implementation of which is decided by the executing judge at the proposal of the head of the prison, was implemented on only two occasions in 2015. Executing judges sometimes make decisions several months after receipt of the proposal, sometimes even a year later, despite the legal time limit of 15 days. Considering the fact that this measure is pronounced in cases of serious threats to security, the large delay between the proposal and the actual implementation of the measure undoubtedly makes the achievement of its original purpose questionable. Means of coercion The rights and integrity of the prisoners are most directly violated by use of means of coercion. According to records of the COPSD, in 2015 such means were used on 44 occasions, the mildest of them being the acts of bringing in and defence techniques, and use of mace spray that contains allowed harmless substances. Records are kept regularly and all prisoners subjected to the use of means of coercion were examined by a physician. 14