1 OVERVIE W OF THE INVESTIGATIONS BY OPC AT UNIT IN THE SPRING AND SUMMER OF 2020 1 Overview of the investigations in the spring and summer of 2020 1.1 The Parliamentary Ombudsmen’s Opcat activities Since 2011, the Parliamentary Ombudsmen have been fulfilling their role as a National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) under the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Opcat). An important part of the task of an NPM is to inspect regularly places where people are deprived of their liberty and report on the conditions . The purpose is to prevent people deprived of their liberty from being subject to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The risk of the spread of infection during the spring and summer of 2020 affected the possibility to conduct physical inspections in the usual way. The Parliamentary Ombudsmen deemed it important to continue, as far as possible, to inspect places where people are deprived of their liberty and, therefore, developed some partially new methods for collecting information. The alternative methods used during the spring were inspections via questionnaires, telephone calls, video calls and outdoor interviews. The questionnaire that was sent to inmates in prisons can be seen in Appendix A. 1.2 Investigations performed In the spring of 2020, each of the Parliamentary Ombudsmen decided to investigate, via an own-initiative in- quiry1 within their respective areas, an agency that deprives people of their liberty, and in that way illustrate the consequences of Covid-19 for people deprived of their liberty. The following investigations have been performed: • Chief Parliamentary Ombudsman Elisabeth Rynning investigated the conditions at the National Board of Forensic Medicine’s two forensic psychiatric examination divisions2, • Parliamentary Ombudsman Thomas Norling investigated the conditions at one of the National Board of Institutional Care’s special residential homes for substance abusers and at one of the agency’s special residential home for young people3, • Parliamentary Ombudsman Katarina Påhlsson investigated the conditions at a number of the Swedish Prison and Probation Service’s remand prisons and prisons4, and • Parliamentary Ombudsman Per Lennerbrant investigated the conditions at two of the Swedish Migration Agency’s detention centres5. 1 The Parliamentary Ombudsmen’s supervision is carried out by examining complaints from the public and by inspections and other investigations, which the Parliamentary Ombudsmen find necessary (Section 5, first paragraphs of the Act with Instructions for the Parliamentary Ombudsmen [1986: 765]). This means that a Parliamentary Ombudsman can start own-initiative inquiries. 2 See Chief Parliamentary Ombudsman’s decision of 15 October 2020, ref. no. O 21-2020. 3 See the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s decision of 3 September 2020, ref. no. O 13-2020. 4 See the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s decision of 30 June 2020, ref. no. O 122020. 5 See the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s decision of 9 October 2020, ref. no. O 182020. –8–