Annual Report 2015 police officials on duty and, thus, with the chiefs of the Basic teams. The care for persons in police custody is not their primary duty, which at times results in these officials being unfamiliar with and failing to meet the requirements set for this care. The police is aware of this problem and is working to improve matters. Another point of concern for the Commissions is the length of the detainment of persons in court buildings. Detained persons are held for many hours, and often for entire days, in the court building, even though the hearing itself takes a short time only. The provisions in the cells in these buildings are not equipped for long periods of stay. For instance, there are no exercise yards and only limited provisions for food and drink. Except for the Amsterdam unit, the police is responsible for the care of the persons detained in court buildings. However, the long periods of stay are caused by the schedule of, on the one hand, the hearings and, on the other, the transport of the detained persons by the Transport & Support Service. The police has no influence on this schedule. Nor does it have any influence on the provisions available in the buildings. Thematic study on the care for arrested persons In addition to the regular monitoring by the Commissions, police custody is the subject of a thematic research conducted by the Inspectorate VenJ, IGZ and IJZ in cooperation with the Commissions. The central research question of the study was: "In what way does the police perform its duty of care for arrested persons and does such performance conform to the applicable legislation and guidelines?" To answer this question, the Inspectorates over 2014 and 2015 inspected all National Police units. On the basis of this research, the Inspectorates have drawn up one national report and more detailed partial reports on each police unit. The Inspectorates' overall opinion of the performance of the duty of care for arrested persons in the Netherlands is positive. The professionalisation of the police since the introduction of the National Police is slowly starting to bear fruit. However, there are some issues requiring attention on the national level. • The Inspectorates deem it important that the new regulations on the searching of persons to be transported become effective soon. • The Inspectorates ask the police to consider fitting emergency relief vehicles with a partitioning screen to guarantee the safety of the officers as much as possible when buying new vehicles. • The Inspectorates once again recommend that the police conclude agreements with the various service organisations, like the municipal authorities, the Municipal Health Services, the Mental Healthcare Institutions and the Netherlands Institute of Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology. The agreements should relate to improving medical care, in particular the access to care, medication safety, the exchange of data and, in particular, the reception of and the provision of proper care to disturbed and/or addicted persons. • The closing down of police stations, in particular in rural regions, has resulted in the transport times of arrested persons increasing. The Inspectorates believe this provides a risk to the deployment of police officers on other tasks, including the visible presence on the streets. In his response to the report, the Minister of Security and Justice stated to work on, inter alia, national Internal Regulations. These regulations aim to guarantee that persons arrested are informed about the reason for their arrest, their rights and the 16 Table of Cont