CAT/OP/BRA/2/Add.1 6. An example of this work of initiating improvements, which involves the Federal Government, the states and the Department of Prosecution, is the method used to disseminate the report on the Subcommittee’s visit – one of the questions put to the Brazilian State. On 14 June 2012, thanks to the wide publicity given to the report by the Federal Government, the Office of the Federal Attorney for Citizens’ Rights, of the Federal Department of Prosecution, chose as one of its priorities for action the monitoring of the implementation of the Subcommittee’s recommendations. Through its Working Group on the Prison System, the Federal Attorney’s Office wrote to the state secretariat and ministries responsible for prison administration in the states of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Goiás and Espírito Santo, requesting detailed information on the measures adopted to implement the Subcommittee’s recommendations. Thus monitoring is done directly through the institutional authority of the Department of Prosecution. 7. With regard to publicizing the Subcommittee’s reports, the Brazilian State maintains that disseminating the recommendations in the report makes it possible for the debate on guaranteeing the rights of the prison population to be conducted in a transparent and constructive manner, in a spirit of international cooperation and productive dialogue with civil society. Following this reasoning, the country also published its October 2012 reply, and will do the same with the Subcommittee’s comments of May 2014 and this communication from the State. 8. Another example showing that the aim of cooperation between Brazil’s federal entities is compliance with international norms, and not the opposite, is the complementarity between the National Mechanism to Prevent and Combat Torture and state mechanisms. As will be shown below, the law establishing Brazil’s national preventive mechanism is not limited to encouraging the creation of state mechanisms. It also provides that, in federal entities that do not have their own mechanisms, the national mechanism can operate independently and directly. 9. The policy to combat torture in Brazil is not carried out by the Federal Government alone, then, but rather by various authorities in concert. The State’s efforts thus centre on coordinating initiatives by the Federal Department of Prosecution, the National Council of Justice and the National Council of Public Defenders, in addition to those of the Executive. Similarly, the Judiciary is determined to improve oversight of prison sentences and of socio-educational measures by means of on-site inspections and recommendations by the National Council of Justice to criminal court judges. 10. Given that these efforts at inter-institutional coordination are key to eradicating the practice of torture in Brazil, an inter-institutional cooperation agreement on “measures to improve the prison system and reduce the shortfalls in capacity” has been in force since October 2013, involving the executive, legislative and judicial branches and the Department of Prosecution, with clearly defined goals and actions. Details are given in section 3 of this report. 11. It is hoped that this report can show how the efforts of the different institutions of the Republic can be concentrated in order to produce concrete and effective improvements in the situation of persons deprived of their liberty in Brazil as quickly as possible. It is structured around three central concepts — preventing and combating torture, the prison system and the socio-educational system — on the basis of which the majority of the questions raised by the Subcommittee in its communication to the Brazilian State will be answered. 12. In emphasizing the main activities related to the implementation of the Subcommittee’s recommendations, the State recognizes the difficulties faced and describes the efforts being made by the different bodies of the executive, legislative and judicial branches, and by state governments. It is hoped that this exercise will promote more 4 GE.14-42059