24 NORWEGIAN PARLIAMENTARY OMBUDSMAN National Preventive Mechanism ANNUAL REPORT 2019 A restraint bed in a prison is inspected by the NPM. Of the 82 times restraint beds have been used, 27 cases concerned women, i.e. more than 30 per cent. During this period, the number of female inmates in Norwegian prisons has been approximately 6 per cent. It is not possible to conclusively establish the age of the persons placed in restraints, as the date of birth was lacking in 26 of the decisions we received. Bredtveit Detention and Security Prison used the restraint bed 13 times in total during the period studied by the Parliamentary Ombudsman. Several cases concerned the same person. Bergen Prison used the restraint bed ten times in total for ten different people during this period. Åna Prison, Stavanger Prison and Tromsø Prison used the restraint bed nine times each during the period. At all three prisons, the restraint bed had been used several times for the same inmate. The rest of the prisons used the restraint bed between one and five times throughout the period, and only two prisons stated that they had not used the restraint bed at all, including one of the juvenile prisons where the restraint bed was not approved. The longest time spent in a restraint bed was three days and 19.5 hours, while the second longest time was two and a half days. Inmates were placed in restraints for approximately 40 hours in several of the prisons, and in thirteen cases for more than 19 hours. Twelve cases lacked documentation of the duration of the use of the restraint bed. Procedures in prisons Of the 18 prisons with a restraint bed, 17 submitted their written procedures for the use of restraint beds. Of these, eleven prisons had not revised their procedures for the use of restraint beds since the Correctional Service’s new guidelines to the Execution of Sentences Act entered into force in March 2019 (the prisons sent their procedures to us during July and August). Of the six prisons that had revised their internal procedures for the use of restraint beds, two had not updated the procedures in accordance with the new requirements for the information to be included in supervision logs. Poor procedures are demonstrated by the fact that approx. ten per cent of the incidents involving inmates being placed in restraints appeared to take place without an administrative decision. It is also demonstrated by the fact that many of the prisons lacked important information in both the administrative decisions and the supervision logs. Some supervision logs lacked documentation over a period of several hours. This is discussed in more detail under the subtitle Restraint beds and the prohibition against inhuman treatment.