and even torture, if exceeding 15 days without meaningful human contact.260 Concerns have been raised that detainees held under these circumstances may confess to crimes they did not commit, just to have the restrictions lifted. 118. In a third Western European OSCE participating State, the Administration of Justice Act allows the placement of remand prisoners in solitary confinement for up to eight weeks for adults and four weeks for minors, which was criticized by the UNCAT in its concluding observations in 2016. It was recommended that the conditions and the length under which solitary confinement during pre-trial detention is permitted, be further restricted and to limit its duration to 15 days.261 Recently, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture found that the country made efforts to ensure that pre-trial detainees are only placed in solitary confinement in exceptional circumstances, and recommended that the authorities pursue their efforts “to ensure that court-ordered isolation of remand prisoners lasts no longer than is absolutely necessary and to counter the negative effects of this measure.”262 Promising practice 119. Although pre-trial detention is overused throughout the OSCE region, there are some examples of promising practices that help to reduce its excessive use and the associated risk of torture. Several OSCE participating States have implemented substantial reforms to execute relevant judgments of the ECtHR or have adopted legal reforms, accompanied by practical measures that have led to a clear reduction in the number of pre-trial detainees and considerable improvements in the treatment of detainees, even though abuses of pre-trial detention continue to occur. 263 It is promising to see that, in several OSCE participating States, the number of detainees without final sentences makes up a very low percentage of the total prison population.264 260 UN General Assembly, Sixty-sixth session, Interim report of the Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Council on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, A/66/268, (August 2011). 261 Committee against Torture, Concluding observations on the combined sixth and seventh periodic reports of Denmark, CAT/C/DNK/CO/6–7, 4 February 2016, para. 32–33. 262 Report to the Danish Government on the visit to Denmark carried out by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) from 3–12 April 2019, CPT/Inf (2019)35. 263 PACE Resolution 2077 (2015), Abuse of pre-trial detention in States Parties to the European Convention on Human Rights, para. 9–10 referring to Poland, Georgia, Russia and Turkey. 264 The Council of Europe Annual Penal Statistics (SPACE I 2013), February 2015: Poland (8.3), Iceland (8.6), Bulgaria (8.8) and Romania (10.9). 73