National Preventive Mechanism
the Austrian prison administration has decided not to pursue a “PrisonCloud”
solution any further.
Only in Norway detention facilities have had limited Internet access since
2010. Only Internet pages in the categories of “education” and “news” can
be retrieved. However, the system requires a great deal of maintenance. Such
(additional) loads cannot be handled in the foreseeable future due to the
very sparse resources of the Austrian prison administration.
Since both the European Prison Rules (Item 28.1) and the CPT Standards
(CPT/Inf [2001] 16 Items 32, 33, 67 and CPT/Inf [99] 12 Item 3) consider
offers of training and education to be a core task of the penal system, the use
of computers and the Internet for learning purposes should also be permitted
in Austrian penal institutions and facilities for the detention of mentally ill
offenders. Therefore, the NPM welcomes the fact that the Austrian prison
administration has operated a learning platform in cooperation with
German penal institutions since 2012.
This learning platform is currently offered for educational purposes in
twelve correctional institutions and has 160 learning programmes. Internet
access is provided at certain times for training purposes as part of low
security incarceration and in a project in one of the field offices of the Stein
correctional institution in Oberfucha.
The NPM proposes that both projects be evaluated within a reasonable
period of time and then adapted, if necessary, and that supervised Internet
use be offered in additional correctional institutions.
¾¾ The current practice of a learning platform, as offered in twelve
correctional institutions, should be evaluated in the near future.
¾¾ Permanent steps must be taken to provide abuse-proof access to the
Internet for continuing education purposes.
2.5.3 Special medical facility at the Stein correctional institution – serious
charges have been made
Manifold criticism
154
In May 2014, Commission 5 visited the Stein correctional institution.
In particular, it addressed the healthcare provided at the special medical
facility and to mentally ill offenders. The commission found that there was
inadequate medical care, a shortage of medical personnel and a questionable
understanding of nursing on the part of the nursing staff with respect to the
inmates.
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