Section 2 Actions taken in 2012 in response to assessments, recommendations and cases taken up by the Contrôleur général. Since 2009, date of publication of the first annual report, the Contrôleur général has tried to assess the actions taken in response to its proposals, whether they take the form of recommendations included in the inspection reports sent to the various ministries throughout the year or that of recommendations of a general character published in the assessments issued by the Contrôleur général des lieux de privation de liberté 177. “Follow-up inspections” of institutions (that is to say second inspections of the same institution, specifically focused on the examination of changes made after the inspectors’ first visit) also provide a means of assessing reactions (or absence of reaction) on the part of the authorities concerned, following recommendations contained in the reports of the Contrôleur général des lieux de privation de liberté. In 2012, nine follow-up inspections were carried out in various institutions 178. Similarly, the Contrôleur général’s teams carry out “on-site inquiries” which make it possible to concentrate on particular issues within institutions. These on-site inquiries supplement general inspections of institutions and also make it possible to ascertain the follow-up measures taken in response to recommendations and assessments. In 2012, six on -site inquiries were carried out 179. The Contrôleur général would like to emphasise his satisfaction with regard to the consistency with which the ministers to whom inspection reports were addressed gave their points of view concerning the recommendations contained in the reports, sometimes giving answers that went beyond the strict framework of particular institutions in order to state their positions on questions of principle. In 2012, the Contrôleur général received sixty-nine ministerial replies following on from inspections180. He also notes with satisfaction that the directors of the institutions inspected sometimes took immediate measures during the inspection or straight afterwards, whether with regard, for example, to dealing with difficult individual situations, to the opening of registers making it possible to ensure the traceability of certain operations or the distribution of notes 177 Two assessments were published in 2012: an assessment of 22nd May 2012 concerning the number of persons in th custody and an assessment of 26 September 2012 concerning the implementation of the partial release system. Cf. section 1 of this report. 178 These inspections were as follows: the legal procedure unit (unité de traitement judiciaire) of the Gare du Nord in Paris, the remand prison of Reims, the detention centre for illegal immigrants of Palaiseau, the police headquarters of Versailles, the detention facility for illegal immigrants at Choisy-le-Roi, the detention centre for illegal immigrants of Toulouse, the detention centre for illegal immigrants of Rouen, the detention centre of Mauzac and the remand prison of Villefranche-sur-Saône. 179 One inquiry concerning the handling of a person with reduced mobility in a prison, two inquiries concerning access to IT facilities in custody, one inquiry on the procedures for handling a mother and her child within a prison, one inquiry concerning the handling of transsexual prisoners, one inquiry concerning the handling of persons detained for acts of piracy in the Gulf of Aden. 180 Twenty-eight replies from the Minister of the Interior, twenty-five from the Minister of Health, fifteen from the Minister of Justice and one from the Economy and Finance Minister. 78