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Adopt suicide prevention programs in keeping with the current guidelines
of the World Health Organization, giving particular attention to measures
relating to training of correctional staff, care of juveniles deprived of
liberty, and the use of disciplinary measures, such as isolation cells, in
accordance with the considerations contained in this chapter.
Initiate sua sponte serious, impartial, and diligent investigations into fires
and other emergencies that occur in detention facilities in which the lives
and well‐being of persons have been impaired or put at risk.
Initiate sua sponte serious, impartial, and diligent investigations into all
deaths that occur in prisons, irrespective of their cause. Such
investigations must be designed to establish the criminal responsibility of
those who perpetrated the act, and, as appropriate, the degree of
responsibility by omission of the authorities and officials associated with
the events.
This duty to investigate and impose penalties also extends to any cases
that may be classified as suicides, deaths from natural causes, accidental
deaths, or deaths resulting from conflicts among inmates.
Introduce audit mechanisms and external monitoring of management
and processing of criminal and administrative proceedings instituted in
connection with acts of prison violence, in order to detect and combat
structural impunity.
Ensure that police officers and correctional staff charged with homicide
are reassigned to positions in which they do not have persons deprived of
liberty under their immediate supervision for as long as the relevant
proceedings to determine their responsibility last.
Ensure that the competent authorities for investigating deaths of persons
deprived of liberty follow the procedures and guidelines set down in the
United Nations Principles on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of
Extra‐legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions.
Adopt the necessary measures to ensure that all proceedings relating to
the death of a person deprived of liberty are dealt with and decided in
the regular criminal jurisdiction.
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