MONITORING PLACES OF DETENTION : A PRACTICAL GUIDE 28 2.3 Visiting places of detention – the main tool for monitoring Places of detention are monitored essentially through visits to the places where persons are detained.3 These visits have a variety of functions: ■ preventive function: The simple fact that someone from the outside regularly enters a place of detention in itself contributes to the protection of those held there. ■ direct protection: In situ visits make it possible to react immediately to problems affecting the detainees which have not been dealt with by the officials in charge; ■ documentation: During the visits, the different aspects of detention can be examined and their adequacy assessed; the information collected provides a basis for forming a judgement and documenting it and for justifying any corrective measures proposed. The visits also provide an opportunity to document specific aspects of detention which could be dealt with in a thematic study; ■ basis for dialogue with the detaining authorities: Visits make it possible to establish a direct dialogue with the authorities and officials in charge of the detention facility. This dialogue, in so far as it is founded on mutual respect, leads to the development of a constructive working relationship, in which the points of view of the officials about their working conditions and any problems they might have identified can also be obtained. In addition, it should be noted that for persons deprived of liberty, having direct contacts with outside persons concerned with their conditions is of importance and constitutes a form of protection as well as of moral support. 3 Information about the conditions of detention collected outside the places of detention can also be used as a basis for intervention in cases where these places are not accessible. Nonetheless, the validity and legitimacy of these interventions can be more easily contested than can those following in situ visits.