The Public Defender of Georgia welcomes the adoption of the new procedure for documenting prisoners’ bodily injuries in penitentiary establishments. It is, however, noteworthy that the new procedure of registering prisoners’ bodily injuries was not enacted in the reporting period. Registering injuries, as in previous years, was punctuated with irregularities, therefore failing to ensure effective identification of the incidents of alleged treatment and their documentation. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that the issues related to independence and qualifications of medical personnel remain problematic in 2016. This raises misgivings regarding the impartiality of health-care professionals when dealing with the alleged ill-treatment of inmates, when they are obliged to register injuries and notify investigative authorities. The Public Defender’s position remains the same regarding determining the duty of a health-care professional to notify the Office of the Chief Prosecutor of Georgia when identifying the incidents of ill-treatment. The Public Defender deems that, irrespective of an inmate’s consent, the decision about notifying investigative authorities should be taken by a health-care professional with the due consideration of interests of the inmate and the public. Furthermore, the lack of involvement of a convict in the risk-assessment procedure is problematic. In the Parliamentary Report of 2015, the Public Defender gave his recommendation to the Minister of Corrections of Georgia to enable convicts to furnish additional documentation to the multidisciplinary team at any stage of assessment, if they believed this would lead to a desirable outcome. However, this recommendation has not been fulfilled. It is a positive development that the duration of placement of inmates in de-escalation rooms decreased in 2016, in comparison to 2015. However, there have been isolated incidents where prisoners were placed in de-escalation rooms from 20 to 36 days. The Public Defender positively assesses the amendments made to the statutes of penitentiary establishments under which the maximum term of placement for prisoners in de-escalation rooms is limited to 72. However, it is noteworthy that a statute authorises the administration of a penitentiary establishment to place an inmate in a de-escalation room for unlimited time, which can again result in long-term isolation of prisoners. The recommendation of the Public Defender remains the same about introduction of the statutory limit of the term of placement of prisoners in de-escalation rooms to a maximum term of 24 hours. The environment and conditions in the de-escalation rooms are not safe and do not minimise the risk of self-harm. In these rooms, visual surveillance systems are installed so that toilet areas are within the camera’s scope. When in de-escalation rooms, prisoners are not given access to shops, telephone calls and correspondence, and visits are not allowed either. The decision on placement in a de-escalation room is taken by an establishment’s director and joint multidisciplinary assessments are not conducted, i.e., psychologists, social workers, medical doctors or other personnel of the establishment’s units are not involved in preventing/decreasing the above-mentioned risks. Therefore, prisoners have the feeling that de-escalation rooms are used for punitive purposes. NATIONAL PREVENTIVE MECHANISM (NPM), 2016 15