Report of the Human Rights Defender on the activities of the National Preventive Mechanism in Poland in 2012 go to school and, according to the duty book, the tutor asked other boys for help). The NPM employees assessed such behaviour as unacceptable since it leads to situations where the centre’s staff allow juveniles to exert pressure on or use physical force against other juveniles. In another establishment87, the problem of frequent searches of rooms was reported to the NPM representatives. According to the juveniles the searches were conducted because tutors were angry or as a form of collective punishment. The visiting team had a number of reservations about the functioning of the re-adaptation group in one of the establishments88. The group was organised in a separate building and the bedroom for the members of the re-adaptation group was equipped only with beds. The visiting team found that it lacks not only any other furniture (like bedside tables) but also a pleasant home-like décor. Additionally, juveniles were isolated from other residents of this centre and were obliged to wear orange trousers. The re-adaptation group consisted of both newcomers and juveniles recognised as particularly difficult cases. Moreover, juveniles did not have any daily outdoor activities. The case was referred to Professor Marek Konopczyński – a specialist in social rehabilitation (hereinafter “the expert”) who was asked to give an opinion on pedagogic and rehabilitation grounds for establishing a re-adaptation group. In his opinion, isolation of the group does not teach the juveniles anything and is not justified from the rehabilitation point of view. It should not take place in youth care centres. The representatives of the NPM and the expert also voiced their reservations about the mixed composition of the group (newly arrived boys and boys recognised as difficult). Furthermore, the expert could not find any reasons to justify the obligation to wear orange trousers by members of the re-adaptation group. The obligation was a stigmatising factor and thus did not serve the purpose of social reintegration, while the re-adaptation process is to introduce mechanisms of individual and social destigmatisation of juveniles. Summing up, the expert believes that the organisational formula of the “re-adaptation group” is in fact a “penal incarceration group”, which is not foreseen in the methodology of rehabilitation interventions or in existing legal standards governing the functioning of youth care centres in Poland. Representatives of the NPM were of the opinion that the cumulative impact of the social conditions and the regime resulting from the nature of the group in the establishment that is a care centre constituted undue severity and inhuman treatment. Therefore, the authorities were requested to change the operational formula of the re-adaptation Youth Care Centre in Brzeg Dolny. Youth Care Centre in Trzciniec. 87 88 46