42 criminal sanctions however, prisoners are accommodated in them for long periods of time. According to the prison officers, the temporary cells are used for accommodation because the units are full. The Deputy-Ombudsman stated that all spaces used for accommodation must be sufficiently spacious. The temporary cells were not suitable for long-term accommodation at their full capacity. The Deputy-Ombudsman stressed that the space requirements were particularly pressing in the case of temporary cells since the prisoners in the temporary cell unit were usually not allowed to spend time outside the cells. Temporary cells should not be used for managing the shortage of beds in the other units. Temporary cells can be used only for short-term placement if necessary, such as when a prisoner arrives in the prison or is preparing to leave. Follow-up: The prison responded that the unit is nearly always overcrowded. The prison and the Assessment Centre are unable to keep the numbers within the official limits, which inevitably affects the allocation of prisoners within the unit. • The temporary cells in another prison were in poor repair. Drawings and writing on the walls added to the untidy appearance. In one piece of writing, a named prisoner was called a “snitch”. The Deputy-Ombudsman recommended that efforts should be made to keep the walls of the cells clean by, for example, painting them over more frequently. Writing mentioning prisoners’ real names should be immediately removed. • During a visit, the NPM interviewed a foreign national prisoner who had been accommodated in a temporary cell for nearly two months. The prisoner said he had asked on a daily basis to be moved to the other unit. The NPM was told that the reason for the arrangement was the fact that the prisoner did not smoke and there were currently no non-smoking cells free on the other units. On the basis of what the prison officers said, no information came up that would justify the accommodation of the prisoner in a temporary cell for such a lengthy period of time. The deputy director of the prison was notified of the matter, and he reported back during the visit that the prisoner had been moved to an other unit. As a result of this observation, further inquiries were made into the reasons for and the lengths of accommodation in the temporary cell. The Deputy-Ombudsman noted that prisoners were not transferred from the temporary cells to the prison unit swiftly enough. The Deputy-Ombudsman stressed that the prison must organise the units so that the placement of prisoners is reassessed daily to avoid situations in which a prisoner spends a considerable length of time in a temporary cell.