Section two Focus on detention issues Isolation – guidance for NPM monitoring bodies In January 2017, the NPM published its guidance on isolation in detention. The guidance was developed following the review of isolation and solitary confinement across detention settings conducted by NPM members in 2014–15, and draws on international best practice. The guidance builds on the findings of the review and provides a comprehensive framework that NPM members should apply when examining isolation in detention, which has the potential to give rise to ill-treatment. It aims to improve the consistency with which NPM members monitor the use of isolation, and allow them to identify and promote good and improved practice. The guidance and its use in practice will provide a basis on which to formulate recommendations to strengthen policy. Following its publication, the guidance was distributed by NPM members to their respective inspectors, monitors and custody visitors. NPM members continue to work to incorporate the guidance into their inspection and monitoring work. Pathways in detention NPM members agreed in 2015 to focus joint efforts on examining pathways between different detention settings. Given that NPM members usually examine treatment and conditions in detention by looking at an individual establishment, we were keen to explore issues relating to the treatment of detainees during movements from one establishment to another that this approach did not capture. This joint work would allow NPM members to identify and examine the pathways across detention settings73 that extend beyond the scope of individual bodies, or fall outside members’ usual monitoring methodology. These pathways exist for a range of reasons. The ones we looked at all related in some way to mental health needs, whether these were the reason for initial detention, or became a factor requiring that the detainee be moved from one place of detention to another. Specifically, we looked at pathways between different mental health settings; pathways from police custody arising from mental health issues; and prison to mental health settings. The NPM role, as set out in OPCAT, is focused on preventing ill-treatment in detention. Monitoring places of detention with a preventive approach requires a focus on ‘analysing the place of detention as a system […], to identify problems which could lead to torture or ill-treatment.’74 Our interest is in examining pathways as an element of the detention system in the UK, and the risks 73. With a focus on pathways that have a start and end place in detention. 74. Association for the Prevention of Torture, What is preventive monitoring? https://www.apt.ch/en/preventive-visits/ [accessed 13/11/17]. 29