MONITORING PLACES OF DETENTION : A PRACTICAL GUIDE 39 1.3 Independent external monitoring In recent years, recognition that places of detention should be transparent and accountable of has led to the setting up of domestic independent monitoring mechanisms. These have become more professional and grown in influence. Such external mechanisms can be of very different types: official institutions established by Parliament, bodies attached to a specific Ministry or civil society groups or a mixture of these. External mechanisms established by Parliament include Ombudsman offices and national human rights institutions. Their usually broad mandate to monitor and promote respect for human rights, combined with their power to examine individual complaints, often includes the possibility of visiting and monitoring places of detention. The depth and frequency of the visits may, however, vary . In addition, visits to places of detention are often undertaken to verify specific allegations and investigate an individual complaint rather than to preventively examine and assess the conditions of detention with the aim of pre-empting future problems. An advantageous feature of Ombudsman and national human rights institutions is that they usually report publicly to the Parliament and their recommendations are, thanks to the bodies’ official status, viewed as authoritative. In some countries, special monitoring bodies have been set up under a specific Ministry. These bodies often have a double mandate both to control conditions of detention in the places under that ministry’s control and advise the Ministry on necessary improvements. Such bodies can be composed of officials, NGO representatives, independent members of civil society (lay people) or a combination of these. These bodies usually issue non-binding recommendations. Sometimes these are published in the form of reports. Finally, in some countries, national human rights NGOs and civil society organisations have managed to get authorisation and agreement to regularly monitor places of detention. Monitoring by civil society is usually characterised by a large degree of independence of the authorities, and the publicity given to the findings and