IX) Security Personal searches generally represent interference with the right to inviolability of the person and privacy of convicts. It constitutes legitimate interference in a prison, to the extent that it is conducted with a view to ensuring internal security (avoiding introduction of prohibited items to the prison), but provided that the searches are carried out reasonably and in a manner which as far as possible respects human dignity. It is certainly not reasonable when all convicts must generally submit to a strip search and the routine includes squatting and lifting one’s penis and scrotum without there being any realistic suspicion that would justify such steps. 121 This is all the more true of strip searches conducted on convicts with disabilities. strip searches should only be performed in justified cases Many convicts pointed out the general use of searches and their humiliating nature. This is, for example, when a search is performed before the convicts are escorted to a civilian health care facility, where they remain under the surveillance of the escorting prison officers during the entire escort, and yet they undergo a strip search again after returning to the prison. It was also common that strip searches were generally applied before and after a visit, even during it if the convict needed to use the toilet. I have documented a case in which a convict was ordered to take off his diapers (again in a situation where he had been searched before the escort and had been naked in a hospital with the prison officers present). 122 In the same prison, there were complaints against Prison Service officers who acted disrespectfully towards persons with disabilities and gave offensive instructions during the search. I recommend that the General Directorate of the Prison Service: •• Modifies the rules for performing strip searches in the internal regulation (RDG 23/2014) to make it clear that they may only be performed in individually justified cases instead of on a general basis; this should be implemented by the end of 2016. 3) Locking of convicts in cells It is stipulated in Section 50 (1) of the Imprisonment Rules that if permitted by the conditions of the prison, the convicts are locked in their cells or bedrooms during the eight hours of sleep time. Furthermore, according to the second paragraph of the same provision: the time during which the convicts are locked in their cells or bedrooms may be extended in justified circumstances by the head of the prison in view of the requirements of maintaining order and security in the prison. The reasons for a longer lock-up are specified in the prison’s internal rules. I found that in most of the prisons visited the convicts in some sections were locked in their cells for more than the eight hours of sleep time without any evaluation of individual risks. Various reasons for locking the convicts were stated by the prisons – most often the need to ensure order and security. 121 SVOBODA, Milan. Důkladné osobní prohlídky (Strip searches). České vězeňství. 2015, Iss. 2, pp. 22-23. 122 Records of convict J. S. on whom a disciplinary punishment was imposed on 21 November 2013 in connection with a personal search. /44/