5.4.1 Schwarzenbruck Pedagogical-therapeutic intensive area The Joint Commission visited the Schwarzenbruck Pedagogical-therapeutic intensive area on 9 July 2012. The Pedagogical-therapeutic intensive area is a closed youth welfare facility, and is responsible for male juveniles aged between 12 and 16 for whom consent has been given for closed accommodation in accordance with section 1631b of the Civil Code (Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch – BGB). It had a capacity of 19 places at the time of the inspection visit, and was fully occupied. The Commission inspected rooms, sanitary areas, common rooms (including the dining room and kitchen), segregation rooms (“cool-down rooms”), as well as several therapy rooms. It spoke to the head of the facility, with a psychologist and with other pedagogical staff. The Commission also spoke with the group spokespersons of the three closed accommodation groups and the spokesperson of the semi-open group. Positive findings The three closed accommodation groups each had an inviting lounge, as well as a well-equipped kitchen with a dining area. Recommendations of the Joint Commission and the reaction of the Bavarian State Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, Families and Women At the time of the visit, the Pedagogical-therapeutic intensive area had three rooms in which juveniles can be separated. One of the three rooms was now being converted to a kind of stabilising room in which, according to the head of the facility, the juveniles were not locked up. Accommodation in this room was intended to prevent accommodation in one of the two segregation rooms. The rooms which the facility called “cool-down rooms” are used as segregation rooms. It is important for pedagogical and psychological reasons to not give these rooms a harmless-sounding name, but to call a spade a spade. The juveniles themselves call these rooms “isocells” and accommodation in such a room was regarded as a punishment with which they were also threatened. The accommodation of juveniles in segregation rooms should as a matter of principle only take place as a last resort, not for disciplinary reasons, and only for a very short period (up to two hours). This view is also held by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture. In the initial period, all efforts have to be made to avoid using these rooms. It emerged from the monthly reports on segregation measures to the supervisory authority that juveniles had been accommodated in a segregation room in 19 cases since November 2011. Only in six 73