| 91 Selected investigations Secure residential institutions rejected young asylum seekers without age determination: During a monitoring visit to a local prison, the monitoring team encountered an underage asylum seeker who was remanded in custody. The court had decided that the inmate was to stay there until a place became available in a secure residential institution. However, two secure residential institutions had refused to accept the young person because his age was in doubt and an examination to determine his age had not yet been carried out. The Ombudsman raised the question with the region whether secure residential institutions were entitled to refuse a young asylum seeker if his or her age was in doubt. The region agreed with the Ombudsman that it is the courts and certain administrative authorities which have the power to make decisions on the placement of children and young people in secure residential institutions. The two secure residential institutions’ practice of refusing young people without age determination would therefore be changed. The Ombudsman criticised a municipality’s supervision of teaching in a secure residential institution’s in-house school: In continuation of a monitoring visit to a secure residential institution, the Ombudsman received a monitoring report on the teaching in the institution’s in-house school. The Ombudsman criticised the municipality’s supervision of the teaching as it was not possible to assess on the basis of the report whether the pupils of the in-house school received schooling which measured up to what is ordinarily required in ordinary primary and lower secondary schools. The municipality accounted for the measures which it had since implemented in order to improve its supervision of the in-house schools in the municipality, and the Ombudsman therefore took no further steps in the matter. The Ombudsman opened a case concerning the duty of children’s asylum centres to notify the municipality when unaccompanied minors disappeared or stayed away: During a monitoring visit to a children’s asylum centre, the Ombudsman’s monitoring team was informed that the Centre did not notify the municipality if a minor about whom the Centre found it had a duty to notify the municipality disappeared or stayed away. In those cases, the notification form was indeed completed but it was only sent to the municipality if the minor returned. In that connection, the Ombudsman opened a case with the Danish Immigration Service. From replies in the case, the Ombudsman noted that any notifications under the Act on Social Services which were in progress would in future always be sent to the municipality, whether or not the minor stayed away while the case was being processed. Furthermore, a notification would always be sent if a child or young person disappeared. On that basis, the Ombudsman took no further steps in the matter. The Ombudsman criticised that a minor was placed in a prison in which minors were not permitted to serve a sentence: When visiting a closed prison in which minors were not permitted to serve a sentence, the monitoring team encountered a 17-year-old boy. The Ombudsman criticised that the 17-year-old had been placed in a prison in which according to the rules minors could not serve a sentence. In addition, the Ombudsman noted the initiatives which were subsequently taken to ensure that staff were familiar with the rules on 15-17-year-olds – including the rules specifying the closed institutions in which minors can be placed. (News stories published on 31 May 2018 and 26 March 2019).