suspended from their duties during the investigation and proceedings. Where a specific allegation or pattern of acts of torture or ill-treatment is demonstrated, the personnel involved should be peremptorily dismissed. (j) penitentiaries and institutions for juvenile offenders. The purposes ranged from obtaining of information and confessions to the lubrication of systems of financial extortion. It is still largely the case that the bodies responsible for investigating and reporting acts of torture, including internal police investigation units [corregedorias], forensic medical units [institutos médicos legais], the public prosecutors office [ministerio público], and the judiciary have largely failed to carry out investigations either due to lack of resources, negligence or complicity. Certain dedicated public prosecutors have proven to be notable exceptions to this rule, as are those working in the human rights department in the state of Minas Gerais, and those prosecutors responsible for monitoring São Paulo’s juvenile detention system, the Foundation for the Well-Being of Minors, or Fundação Estadual do Bem Estar do Menor (FEBEM), where systematic work has contributed to increased prosecutions, though often in the face of institutional pressures. monitors consider any such complaints likely to be true (A/HRC/11/2/Add.2, para. 43). Non-governmental sources: While there have been some important prosecutions of suspected perpetrators of torture, as far as records stand, convictions continue to be minimal. This is largely due to the fact that mechanisms for denouncing, investigating and prosecuting perpetrators of torture remain extremely weak. 17 Witness protection programmes should be implemented in all states, PROVITA currently operates in 16 states and the federal district A/HRC/13/39/Add.6 States which have police ombudsmen’s offices have to some extent managed to document the extent of torture. Given the limited powers bestowed to the offices, especially the lack of investigative powers and the lack of any real independence both financial and institutional, they have also failed to reduce incidences of torture. Consequently, visits to places where torture is thought to occur and the reporting of cases is often limited to those civil society groups able to obtain access.