The Bangkok Rules 38 Thus in general juveniles in pre-trial detention should be offered educational and vocational programmes appropriate to their age, where possible. Juvenile female prisoners are likely to have even less access to suitable educational and vocational training facilities than either adult women or juvenile male prisoners, due to their small numbers. Any programmes provided for juveniles are likely to have been developed to address the needs of boys. The provision of appropriate education and vocational training programmes may be problematic for a variety of reasons, including the shortness of pre-trial detention periods in some jurisdictions, but States should make every effort to prevent a break particularly in the education of juveniles during this period, in line with Article 28, 1 (a) and (d) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In any case, pre-trial detention should be used only in exceptional circumstances, in line with Rule 17 of the United Nations Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty and the principles outlined in Convention on the Rights of the Child Article 40, 3 (b) and 4. Juvenile female prisoners are unlikely to have access to gender sensitive health care or counselling for physical or sexual abuse suffered prior to imprisonment. Pregnant girl prisoners comprise one of the most vulnerable groups in prisons, due to the social stigmatization to which they may be subjected, their inexperience of dealing with pregnancy and the lack of adequate facilities for pregnant juvenile female prisoners. PART II RULES APPLICABLE TO SPECIAL CATEGORIES A. PRISONERS UNDER SENTENCE Rule 40-41 Rule 69 of SMR provides that, “…as soon as possible after admission and after a study of the personality of each prisoner with a sentence of suitable length, a programme of treatment should be prepared for him in the light of the knowledge obtained about his individual needs, his capacities and dispositions…” Rule 63 of the SMR emphasizes the need for a flexible system of classification, and underlines that the same level of security does not need to apply to all prisoners in one institution. Also in line with the principle that the security measures to which prisoners are subject should be the minimum necessary to achieve their secure custody, it states that “...open institutions, by the very fact that they provide no physical security against escape but rely on the self-discipline of the inmates, provide the conditions most favourable to rehabilitation for carefully selected prisoners…” However, once again, women are often discriminated against in the application of this principle, due to one or a combination of a series of factors. Firstly, since the same classification instruments are used for women and men in the vast majority of prisons worldwide, despite women’s different needs and circumstances, information about a history of domestic violence, sexual abuse, and parental responsibility are areas in which screening is lacking for women. As a result classification and screening procedures do not provide essential information about the women, which may increase the probability of their placement in a higher security level than appropriate, while reducing possibilities of providing suitable prisoner programmes matching individual needs. A further problem is that “needs” are often assessed as risk factors during assessments, which can mean that prisoners with mental disabilities may be seen as requiring a higher level of security, rather than the opposite. Such misclassification affects women more so than men due to the higher level of mental health problems among women offenders. High security levels are inappropriate for the housing of prisoners with mental disabilities and will almost invariably further exacerbate existing mental health-care needs. Furthermore, due to the limited accommodation available for women prisoners, in a number of countries they are housed in security levels not