VISITS BY THE JOINT COMMISSION 4.2.4 – Frankfurt am Main Police Headquarters, 26 November 2014 Frankfurt am Main Police Headquarters will have simple doors installed in front of the toilets. The custody cells have access to daylight, although the frosted glass windows prevent detainees being able to look out. The National Agency feels that this is problematical. At least when people are detained for a longer period (in what is known as “preventive custody”), then they should be able to look outside. The documents submitted to the Joint Commission indicated that preventive/long-term custody was enforced twice so far in 2014 and three times in 2013. Response: Preventive custody is not comparable to criminal procedural measures or certain measures under the law of threat prevention (e.g. drying out after consuming alcohol or drugs). Therefore, there can be no reservations against enabling those in custody being able to look out of the window. Given the structural conditions, it would be possible to enable them to look out onto Polizeimeister Kasper Street and Courtyard 5 or 6 in Police Headquarters, although it would need to be ensured that those in the cells cannot be seen/observed from outside. There are plans to remove the frosted glass windows in two of the cells and to swap them for windows with mirrored foil. There are a total of eight custody cells which are monitored by means of CCTV in Frankfurt am Main Police Headquarters; five of these cells have a toilet. The images of the toilet are not pixellated on the screens in the central CCTV monitoring area. According to staff, CCTV monitoring is primarily used when detainees are drunk. Privacy must always be protected in an appropriate manner. In the case of CCTV monitoring, this can be achieved, for instance, by pixellating images of the toilet. The National Agency would like to point out that Frankfurt am Main I Prison pixellates images, thereby respecting prisoners’ privacy without, in the opinion of the head of the facility, neglecting security 48 aspects. In all other respects, only where there is an acute danger of self-harm or suicide does it appear conceivable, in carefully considered, substantiated and documented individual cases, to permit unrestricted monitoring of a custody cell. The surveillance should be apparent or at least perceptible; covert surveillance 49 is not permissible. Further, the Joint Commission would like to point out that CCTV monitoring can on no account be a substitute for regular, direct checks of the custody cells by duty officers, and that it can at most be supplementary to such checks. Response: CCTV monitoring is used only in addition to other monitoring measures. The recommendation as regards The Joint Commission visited Frankfurt am Main Police Headquarters on 26 November 2014. There are a total of 43 multi-occupancy cells and 94 singleoccupancy cells (24 of which are currently not usable) in the Police Headquarters. The multi-occupancy cells can each hold between 10 and 16 people. The custody cells are spread across a total of three floors; the central holding area is located on the ground floor. Recommendations and response The cells are sufficiently large and are furnished with the bare essentials. The toilet is not separate and is in full view of staff looking through a peephole. That means that when they are going to the toilet people in custody could be seen either by someone looking through the peephole or if someone opens the door unannounced. The Joint Commission therefore recommends, in the interest of protecting privacy, that staff should draw attention to themselves before using the peephole or entering a cell. This will ensure that whoever is inside has the opportunity to indicate that they are using the toilet. On the afternoon of 26 November 2014 the head of the police custody suite informed his staff by email that this recommendation was to be implemented. The Joint Commission would like to make positive mention of the fact that the police station reacted so promptly to its recommendation. Response: This recommendation was already implemented by the head of the police custody on 26 November 2014 in an email sent to all members of staff, and the matter was again raised in subsequent meetings of teams and supervising police officers. Two of the multi-occupancy cells have a toilet which is separated off from the rest of the cell by means of a wall, but there is no door. According to staff, those who need to go to the toilet are taken out of the cell. People taken into custody are informed of this when they are booked in. The multi-occupancy cells are no longer used, staff said, apart from during large-scale events. The Joint Commission believes that, in order to be able to protect privacy, it is only not necessary to completely separate the toilet off from the rest of the room if previous practice is retained without exception, namely that detainees are always taken out of the multi-occupancy cell when they need to go to the toilet. Response: Since custody pending deportation was relocated to Frankfurt am Main I Prison in 2012, the second floor has no longer been used to accommodate detainees. No final decision has yet been taken in regard to the future use of these rooms. Should the second floor retain its current structure, 48 49 54 see National Agency, Annual Report 2013, p. 65 National Agency, Annual Report 2013, p. 27–28