Prisons and pre-trial detention centres 2.4  Areas requiring improvement 1. Treatment During the visits to penitentiary establishments in 2012, the representatives of the National Preventive Mechanism did not find any cases of torture of inmates. In one of the prisons58, the representatives of the NPM found clear and numerous signals indicating inhuman and degrading treatment. According to the prisoners interviewed by the employees of the NPM, newly admitted prisoners are regularly beaten up. The inmates even named the practise of the prison officers after the name of the place where the prison is located, calling it a “Siedlce method”. The Prison Service officers beat the prisoners in the feet using rubber baton in order to “soften up” the prisons at the beginning of their stay in the establishment. The prisoners report that violence is also used at the therapeutic ward of the prison against the perpetrators of crimes specified in Article 207 of the Penal Code. The inmates from the ward stated that the Prison Service officers thus mete out “additional justice” to perpetrators of those crimes. One of the inmates requested the visiting team to report, on his behalf, a crime against him and presented the marks of beating on his body. The report was sent to competent authorities and the case is pending. The Human Rights Defender will also ex officio analyse the preparatory proceedings initiated as a result of reports filed by the prisoners from the establishment, which were discontinued or not instigated. During the interviews with the representatives of the NPM, the inmates complained about some officers from the security department who, according to the inmates, did not address them politely and in the appropriate form.59 The prisoners complained that apart from the officers from the said department, the personnel of the prison health care service also addressed them brusquely.60 During the visit to the therapeutic ward of one of the prisons61, the employees of the NPM paid attention to the method of providing meals to inmates from this ward. Being aware that prison authorities have the right to order that the meals are provided through food hatches in the cell doors for security reasons, the representatives of the Mechanism questioned the use of this restriction in all the wards. Their concern was cased by the fact that this way of meal supply was common and restrictive also for prisoners with respect to whom such precautions were not necessary. Prison in Siedlce. Prison in Tarnów-Mościce, Prison No 2 in Łódź, Prison in Warszawa-Białołęka, Prison in Nowy Wiśnicz, Prison in Rawicz, Prison in Rzeszów, Prison No 2 in Strzelce Opolskie, Prison in Sztum, Pre-trial Detention Centre in Kielce, Prison in Stargard Szczeciński, Prison in Siedlce. 60 See point 2.4 Areas requiring improvement, section 2 – Access of inmates to health care. 61 Prison in Wronki. 58 59 35