47 Lennart Frandsen Head of 3rd Division (Inspections) WOMEN IN PRISON ‘It is clearly unacceptable that mentally ill women are compulsorily placed in a situation where they feel ­pressurised into marrying a male prisoner – possibly a prisoner sentenced for a very serious and dangerous sexual crime.’1 The Act on the Execution of Sentences and the administrative provisions issued under the authority of the Act contain a number of rules protecting the legal rights of prisoners and their conditions generally. The rules apply to persons in state prisons and as a starting point also to those detained in local prisons and Prison and Probation Service halfway houses. Detailed legal guarantees apply to the individual measures which may be implemented in relation to prisoners. The purpose is of course to ensure that prisoners can live at the institutions without inconveniences beyond those which follow from the deprivation of liberty itself. In the legislative history behind the Act on the Execution of Sentences it is stated in this connection that no restrictions should be made to the prisoners’ lives beyond those necessary for the implementation of the deprivation of liberty imposed by the sentence. The deprivation of liberty is only intended to affect local freedom. Relations among prisoners The Act on the Execution of Sentences and the administrative provisions thus govern the relationship between the State (the Prison and Probation Service) and prisoners, with a number of rights, guarantees, etc. intended to ensure that prisoners can serve their sentences with as few problems as possible. However, what about relations among the prisoners themselves? There are virtually no 1 Parliamentary Ombudsman Report for 1996, p. 380