fundamental and human rights �.� national preventive mechanism against torture the prisoners consent and was therefore required to return the funds to the prisoner. If an agreement cannot be reached on the matter, the prison should file an action for damages in the court (3721/2017). The prison reported that it had returned the money to the prisoner’s account A renovated cell hallway at the Helsinki Prison. In the reporting year, the Deputy-Ombudsman issued one statement to the Legal Affairs Committee of Parliament on a government proposal related to prisoners (4724/2018). The proposal suggested a new, discretionary basis for imposing supervision on prisoners released to probationary freedom. The proposed basis for supervision was a high risk of repeating a violent or sex offence. In 2018, the NPM also gave two statements to the Department of Criminal Policy at the Ministry of Justice and made 10 proposals, most of which involved legislation or drawing up internal guidelines for the administrative branch. The Deputy-Ombudsman proposed the payment of compensation in one decision concerning a complaint made by a prisoner. The prison had charged the prisoner’s bank account as compensation for a broken item without the prisoner’s consent. The Deputy-Ombudsman stated that the prison did not have the right to do this without 84 In the field of criminal sanctions, visit reports are sent for information to the Central Administration of the Criminal Sanctions Agency, the management of the criminal sanctions region in question and the Department of Criminal Policy at the Ministry of Justice. In addition, the central and regional administrations are often requested to report measures taken as a result of the observations. The Ombudsman receives reports on the facilities visited, drawn up for the internal oversight of legality in the criminal sanctions field. Furthermore, each month the Criminal Sanctions Agency provides the Ombudsman with its statistics on the number of prisoners and prison leave. Among other things, the prisoner statistics indicate the number of remand prisoners, male and female prisoners, and prisoners under the age of 21. The statistics on prison leave give an indication of the processing practices concerning leave applications in each prison, or in other words, how many prisoners apply for leave and how often, and how much leave is granted. Visits to the Central Administration Unit of the Criminal Sanctions Agency and Department of Criminal Policy at the Ministry of Justice were also made in the reporting year. The NPM made a total of 13 inspection visits were made in the field of criminal sanctions. Six of these visits involved the whole facility. The visited facilities were: – Kerava Prison, 30 January 2018, 94 places (448/2018) – Laukaa Prison, 23 May 2018, 59 places (2337/2018) – Kuopio Prison, 23 May 2018, specific theme (2338/2018) – Sulkava Prison, 3 May 2018, 48 places (2339/2018)