MONITORING PLACES OF DETENTION : A PRACTICAL GUIDE FOR NGOS 80 Follow-up: 1 ■ Who has already been informed of this allegation, and with what results? ■ Is there a possibility of lodging an administrative or penal complaint? ■ Has the person authorised transmission of his/her allegation? ■ Where a complaint was lodged, what were the consequences (for the author; for the victim)? If a doctor is present: ■ medical report; ■ need for medical treatment. Personal observations of the members of the delegation. Visiting teams should also be made aware of the fact that practices exist which are more difficult to identify than acts of torture, but which can, in the long run, destroy the psychological balance of those deprived of their liberty. These are all the more harmful as the victims of these often insidious practices are not always in a position to identify them and to report them in an explicit manner. Rather, the facts are often conveyed through a general statement – for instance: “They treat us like animals”. The following staff practices or attitudes are examples of this: ■ systematically ignoring a request until it is repeated several times; ■ speaking to persons deprived of their liberty as if they were small children; ■ never looking detainees directly in the eyes; ■ entering detainees’ cells suddenly and without reason;