CPT: 15TH GENERAL REPORT 51. The proposed changes to the content and structure of the EPR reflect well the positive developments in prison policy and practice in Europe over the last two decades. The strengthening of the Basic Principles is a particularly important advance, notably the inclusion of the precepts that “persons deprived of their liberty retain all rights that are not lawfully taken away by the decision sentencing them or remanding them in custody” and that “restrictions placed on persons deprived of their liberty shall be the minimum necessary and proportionate to the legitimate objective for which they are imposed”. Reference should also be made to the new Basic Principle that “prison conditions that infringe prisoners’ human rights are not justified by lack of resources”; this is of particular relevance in view of the serious overcrowding currently affecting many prison systems in Europe. Overcrowding is a cancer which, if left unchecked, will lead to inhuman and degrading conditions and, more generally, hinder efforts to reintegrate prisoners into society. In this connection, the CPT welcomes the innovatory rule that national law shall provide mechanisms for ensuring that the minimum requirements for prisoners’ accommodation are not breached by overcrowding. The important public service carried out by prison staff is now highlighted in the Basic Principles, and rightly so. The CPT is particularly pleased to see the emphasis placed in this principle and later rules on the recruitment, training and conditions of employment of persons working within prisons. Indeed, the cornerstone of a humane prison system will always be properly recruited and trained staff who are committed to professional standards of custodial care, as articulated in the EPR. 17 The Basic Principles now stress that all prisons shall be subject to regular independent monitoring, in addition to governmental inspection. This is another important development. There are various possible models of independent monitoring mechanisms at national level, and the revised rules understandably do not seek to impose a particular approach. That said, the CPT believes that in large prison systems, it is very desirable for the independent monitoring system to include mechanisms operating at local level, in relation to an individual or just a few establishments. This should ensure that the situation in each prison is effectively monitored on a regular and frequent basis. The Basic Principles also define the scope and application of the EPR and, in this connection, stipulate that “persons who are suffering from mental illness and whose state of mental health is incompatible with detention in a prison should be detained in an establishment specially designed for the purpose”. The CPT fully agrees. However, the same Basic Principle then appears to leave the door open to such persons sometimes nevertheless being held in prison. The CPT acknowledges that, in reality, mentally ill persons in need of care in a psychiatric facility are at times to be found in ordinary prisons. But this is a phenomenon that needs to be combatted, not regulated. A prisoner whose state of mental health is found to be incompatible with detention in a prison should be transferred without delay to an appropriately equipped hospital facility; that facility could be a civil mental hospital or a specially designed psychiatric facility within the prison system. 52. The quality of life in a prison will depend in no small measure on the standard of its health-care service. Consequently, the CPT was pleased to note the considerable attention given to health care in the revised EPR. The Committee is firmly attached to the principle of equivalence of care – namely that prisoners are entitled to medical treatment and care in conditions comparable to those enjoyed by patients in the outside community. In this connection, it welcomes the provisions in the revised EPR highlighting the close links which should exist between, on the one hand, health care and policy in prisons and, on the other hand, the administration of health care and definition of health policy in the community at large. The CPT shares the view that the most effective way of ensuring that such links exist is for the provision of health care in prisons to be contracted to the general health-care system.