PREFACE The National Agency for the Prevention of Torture is the body responsible in Germany for ensuring humane detention conditions and treatment of prisoners. The Agency hereby presents an annual report of its activities to the Federal Government, the German Bundestag, the Länder governments and the Länder parliaments. The Report covers the period from 1 January to 31 December 2017. This activity report will first provide an introduction to the National Agency's mandate and its working methods. The next chapter describes the standards the National Agency has developed – in addition to its visits – as benchmarks for humane detention and treatment conditions in the institutions visited. These standards are derived from the Agency's recurring recommendations and are continually developed and adapted. They can also be found on the National Agency's website. This is followed by a report on the Agency's focus of activity in 2017: the deprivation of liberty by the police. In the context of this, the Agency not only visited police stations of all Länder, but also observed police measures carried out at major events. One issue that continues to arise regularly with regard to police custody is the use of physical restraints. Such use of physical restraints is permitted in some of the Länder, and in some facilities this measure is even applied regularly. The National Agency is critical of this, since the use of physical restraint constitutes a severe interference with rights to freedom, and involves considerable risks for the person under restraint. In most cases, police stations do not have suitable restraint systems, nor are persons being restrained supervised without interruption by a qualified person (so-called “Sitzwache”). This focus topic is followed by a report on the National Agency's visits in all of its other areas of competence. Significant deficiencies were found in the Karlsruhe, Traunstein, Stuttgart and Berlin Tegel prisons. Here, the National Agency repeatedly encountered detention conditions that infringe human dignity and must be rectified. The National Agency increased the number of its visits, especially those to care facilities and social institutions, and also conducted a number of followup visits in order to check on the implementation of its recommendations. The findings and recommendations made by the National Agency in the course of its visits are summarised in this Annual Report. The National Agency only publishes the names of the institutions it visited if these are state-funded. This applies to the publication of both the visit reports and the respective statements made by the competent ministries. The reason for this is that there are considerable doubts as to whether the legal basis for the National Agency's work (the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in conjunction with the ratifying legislation of 26 August 2008) is specific enough to justify the publication of information pertaining to privately run institutions, particularly in view of their rights under Article 14 of the German Basic Law [Grundgesetz, GG]. This impairs the National Agency's preventive work and reduces its effectiveness. The National Agency therefore considers it necessary that a sufficient legal basis be established, allowing the National Agency to publish the names of all the institutions it visited as well as visit reports and statements, which would enable it to fulfil its mandate in terms of prevention as provided for in the Optional Protocol. 6