E/CN.4/2006/6/Add.2 page 53 transferred to a SIZO depending on the decision of a public prosecutor. An accused can be also transferred from a SIZO to an IVS for further investigation or trial. The number of people held in IVSs has risen from 4 million to more than 5 million persons in the period from 1995 to 2000. Since the Ministry of Justice determines the limit of places in SIZOs, IVSs become “a buffer zone” where prisoners can be held. For example, on many occasions, SIZOs refused to accept persons with signs of beatings arriving from IVSs (where the level of violence including applying torture in order to obtain confessions is extremely high). IVSs are also closed to public inspectors. Furthermore, since the Special Rapporteur’s visit, the authorities have taken virtually no measures to prevent violence against detainees in police stations and IVSs. Human rights NGOs have received hundreds of documented cases of police torture and abuse. A review of these cases leads to the conclusion that police officers generally use violence against detainees to force confessions or to facilitate their investigations. In some documented cased, the police have used violence to pressure witnesses, to discourage detainees from filing a complaint against police, or to extort money. Detainees are most often abused in police station rooms. Interviews of police officers in 10 regions confirmed the use of abusive practices. Some of the interviewed police officers confessed that they themselves use violence against people in custody. A review of cases brought to NGOs also showed that ill-treatment of detainees is often facilitated by falsified entries in custody registers. In most cases under review, police either failed to produce any detention record in the custody log or logged a criminal suspect as an administrative offender, thus automatically denying him access to legal counsel and other safeguards provided by the criminal procedure. Measures that need to be taken include increased financial and human resources available to the police force. At the same time, strict supervision over police conduct must be introduced. Currently, the only available form of such supervision is prosecutorial oversight, however, NGOs’ reviews of prosecutorial inquiries and investigations into reports of police brutality strongly suggest that prosecutorial involvement has been less than effective. In most cases, prosecutors have failed to collect evidence, but also create unnecessary delays in the investigation process. As a result, perpetrators of torture or ill-treatment go unpunished, while victims are denied any effective remedy. The failure of prosecutors to investigate police abuse, according to the Presidential Human Rights Commission, is caused by the prosecutors’ conflict of interest; to work with law enforcement to combat crime. In order to improve the situation, an impartial investigative body should be set up to look into reports of torture, cruel and degrading treatment by police. 252. Recommendation (b) stated: This recommendation should be put into effect by Presidential Decree if necessary. It could probably be achieved by ordering the release pending trial of all non-violent first-time offenders, any remaining overcrowding could be eliminated by opening up, on a temporary basis, indoor stadiums or other comparable public places, and transferring the excess population to such places. 253. In accordance with information received from NGOs, the situation with regard to overcrowding in SIZOs has stabilized. However, the conditions in places of deprivation of liberty are still not in conformity with international standards. Reconstruction takes a long time and as a whole does not change the situation. Besides, the conditions in SIZOs vary from region to region. Government statistics indicate that on average each person in a SIZO has at least 3.9 square meters of personal space, but this has no practical meaning because in SIZOs people are assigned to 14 different categories that have to be held separately (e.g. teenagers and women are held in relatively spacious cells, while detainees in other cells often do not even have their own bed). Consequently some isolators and cells are overcrowded by 1.5 times (e.g. in the Republics