not been addressed but which are deemed essential to the Committee’s ongoing work, in order to be effective in taking preventive and protective measures to eliminate torture and ill-treatment. 57. In the correspondence with States parties, the Rapporteur has noted recurring concerns which are not fully addressed in the follow-up replies. The following list of items is illustrative, not comprehensive: (a) The need for greater precision on the means by which police and other personnel instruct on and guarantee detainees their right to obtain prompt access to an independent doctor, lawyer and family member; (b) The importance of specific case examples regarding such access, and implementation of other follow-up recommendations; (c) The need for separate, independent and impartial bodies to examine complaints of abuses of the Convention, because the Committee has repeatedly noted that victims of torture and ill-treatment are unlikely to turn to the very authorities of the system allegedly responsible for such acts; and the importance of the protection of persons employed in such bodies; (d) The value of providing precise information such as lists of prisoners which are good examples of transparency, but which often reveal a need for more rigorous fact-finding and monitoring of the treatment of persons facing possible infringement of the Convention; (e) Numerous ongoing challenges in gathering, aggregating, and analysing police and administration of justice statistics in ways that ensure adequate information as to personnel, agencies, or specific facilities responsible for alleged abuses; (f) The protective value of prompt and impartial investigations into allegations of abuse, and in particular information about effective parliamentary or national human rights commissions or ombudspersons as investigators, especially for instances of unannounced inspections; the utility of permitting non-governmental organizations to conduct prison visits; and the utility of precautionary measures to protect investigators and official visitors from harassment or violence impeding their work; (g) The need for information about specific professional police training programmes, with clear-cut instructions as to the prohibition against torture and practice in identifying the sequellae of torture; and for information about the conduct of medical examinations, including autopsies, by trained medical staff, especially whether they are informed of the need to document signs of torture including sexual violence and to ensure the preservation of evidence of torture; (h) The need for evaluations and continuing assessments of whether a risk of torture or other ill-treatment results from official counter-terrorism measures; (i) The lacunae in statistics and other information regarding offences, charges and convictions, including any specific disciplinary sanctions against officers and other relevant personnel, particularly on newly examined issues under the Convention, such as the intersection of race and/or ethnicity with ill-treatment and torture, the use of “diplomatic assurances” for persons being returned to another country to face criminal charges, incidents of sexual violence, complaints about abuses within the military, etc. 93