Report of the Human Rights Defender on the activities of the National Preventive Mechanism in Poland in 2012 Apart from the chaos that would inevitably result from the need to implement the decisions (granting additional walks, additional cultural and educational activities), the State Treasury could face paying damages for a radical deterioration of the conditions of serving a prison sentence due to claims lodged by prisoners. The situation will undoubtedly deteriorate, especially as several thousand convicts are evading serving their sentence, and also because Poland, as a  European Union Member State, must implement the Framework Decision of the Council of the European Union in line with which since 2016 the Republic of Poland will be under the obligation to accept Polish prisoners sentenced to imprisonment from EU countries.34 Item 11 of the Framework Decision says that Poland is not ready to accept Polish prisoners from the EU, so it received derogation for accepting Polish inmates who committed a crime in the EU to Polish prisons for five years. Bearing in mind that the Decision entered into force on 5 December 2011, the derogation period expires on 5 December 2016.35. Thus, Poland will be obliged to admit Polish citizens convicted to imprisonment in EU countries (ca. 12,000 people) to Polish prisons. According to statistics of the Central Board of Prison Service, in December 2012 there were 37,050 people who failed to show up to serve their sentence of imprisonment, while in January 2013 the figure was 35,355. According to the above reply of the Minister of Justice, about 2/3 of the people do not serve the penalty of imprisonment because they evade it. In order to acquire full information, it should be verified how law enforcement bodies manage to find those evading punishment. In the opinion of the NPM representatives, the attempts to expand the infrastructure of penitentiary units or the current solutions that consist in using all the space available in the units are not a sufficient remedy to overcrowding. An See: Council Framework Decision 2008/909/JHA of 27 November 2008 on the application of the principle of mutual recognition to judgments in criminal matters imposing custodial sentences or measures involving deprivation of liberty for the purpose of their enforcement in the European Union (OJ L 327, 5.12.2008, p. 27). 35 The justification for the Act of 16 September 2011 amending the Act – Code of Penal Procedure, the Act on the prosecution and the Act on the National Criminal Register (Dz. U. No 240, item 1430) says it should be assumed that all people serving imprisonment sentence in other EU Member States (ca. 3,700) and all people temporary arrested in these countries (ca. 8,000) may be transferred to Poland in the years 20172021. Thus, ca. 11,700 people may be transferred to Poland in the period in question. However, we should not expect that these people would be transferred to Poland in equal numbers over the years making up the period in question. To the contrary, Member States will attempt to transfer inmates to Poland as soon as possible. Even considering that some prisoners would be transferred from Poland to other Member States (it is estimated this would be 300 people over two years), we should expect that the net transfer to Poland in the years 2017 and 2018 would be 11,400 people, i.e. 5,700 people a year. In the years 2018-2021, as a result of transferring all the convicts serving the penalty of imprisonment, the number of people transferred to Poland is expected to return to the norm from before 2017, i.e. to about 250 people a year. 34 26