monitoring activities New framework for the Ombudsman’s monitoring visits adults. Some of the legal issues related to treatment of children and young people for alcohol and drug abuse, for instance provision of urine samples, differ from those related to treatment of adults because institutions cannot enter into an agreement with children/young people. The Ombudsman has brought this issue to the attention of the Ministry of Children, Gender Equality, Integration and Social Affairs. Consequently, a committee has been set up in order to look at the rights of children and young people placed in care. To read more about the committee and the background to its establishment, see the 2012 Annual Report of the Danish Parliamentary Ombudsman, pages 67-69. We also encountered a problem with regard to drug abuse treatment for remand prisoners. According to the law, remand prisoners must have access to drug abuse treatment free of charge. However, in practice, none of the local prisons visited by our monitoring staff offered any treatment other than motivational treatment, which is aimed at motivating drug abusers to enter into treatment. The local prisons informed us that the lack of other options was due to practical problems, among others that the local prisons did not know how long remand prisoners would be placed at the prison. This made it difficult to set up a treatment plan. We shall soon discuss this issue with the Prison and Probation Service. Institutions without a policy of violence As mentioned earlier, the other theme of our monitoring visits to institutions for adults was prevention of violence and threats among residents or inmates. We took up this theme since it is of course a terrible experience being, for instance, assaulted during imprisonment. Unfortunately, the Prison and Probation Service has in recent years noted an increase in the extent of violence and threats among inmates. Our monitoring visits revealed that many institutions are very aware of preventing violence and threats among residents or inmates, but nevertheless, a specific policy of violence determining what exactly is to be done at the individual institution in order to prevent violence and threats among residents or inmates was not in place at all institutions. Thus, we recommended that a policy of violence was implemented at the institutions where it was deemed relevant. Incidentally, it was not only during monitoring visits that we gave attention to issues of violence and threats among residents or inmates: In 2013, the Ombudsman took up a case on his own initiative based on press coverage of a violent attack on an inmate in a closed prison (Statsfængslet i Ringe). 77