Report on the Performance of Activities of the National Preventive Mechanism for 2017 Prisoners’ work is evaluated and as such plays an important role in adopting a decision about benefits. That is why it is extremely important to make a decision regarding the posting of prisoners at workplace in line with their health condition, education and knowledge. It is also important to make sure that they are appropriately fit for jobs assigned to them and monitored by their trainers. That is why prison directorates were advised, after the visits to the Zagreb, Dubrovnik and Gospić County Prisons and the Glina State Prison, to consider the option to list all the jobs performed by prisoners within wards and subwards that include engagement of hired trainers, in order to evaluate their work accordingly. Some penal institutions (for instance, the Zagreb and Dubrovnik County Prisons) have not carried out risk assessment, i.e. it is not clear what jobs require an obligatory opinion of the OM (occupational medicine) specialist as opposed to jobs that call for the opinion of the prison physician only. Other penal institutions had developed risk assessments. On the other hand, the Glina State Prison failed to refer prisoners to an examination by an OM specialist due to austerity measures, although they were performing jobs that required such an examination. Furthermore, although the EPSA states that, when assigning prisoners to work, a physician’s opinion must be obtained, the Act does not stipulate in detail the content thereof, so if, in order to assign prisoners to workplace, it is necessary to obtain the opinion of the official physician of a penal institution, COPSPD should, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, develop guidelines as a basis for formulation of such opinions. Apart from the Dubrovnik County Prison, none of the penal institutions allow work engagements for all prisoners who want to work. For that reason, prisoners who are eager to work should thus be assigned to posts that do not call for any special professional qualifications or health requirements, i.e. the required number of workers should be engaged to cover all the workplaces envisaged by the abovementioned List. Vacancies have been registered for certain posts, especially in the catering industry, usually filled by prisoners from the medium security wards in the Lepoglava State Prison. Given the strict criteria that prisoners have to meet, they cannot be transferred to medium security wards in sufficient numbers, so those assigned work in the catering industry work overtime as defined in accordance with general regulations. None of the penal institutions keep records on the number of prisoners engaged to work in accordance with the decision on work assignments. These records, particularly in case of large numbers of prisoners deployed, would allow for transparency regarding available vacancies, monitoring of prisoners’ work assignments and compliance in terms of the number of workers with the List. In 2017, on average, 1,148 prisoners were assigned to work each month, of which 1,060 full time, whereas 88 of them worked overtime. In line with the contracts concluded between penal institutions and employers, no more than 112 persons were assigned to work, as opposed to 879 of non-engaged prisoners, who had not been provided with job opportunities, although they had said they wanted to work. New forms of work assignments covering more prisoners should be considered by taking into account all the elements listed above, in particular, the structure of prisoners in terms of their qualifications, work capability, criminological characteristics, length of sentence, possibility to refer them to certain types of imprisonment and availability of jobs. 17