Report on the Performance of the Activities of the National Preventive Mechanism for 2019 which may easily lead to certain inmates being in the superior position of "chief who makes the rules in the room". Persons finding themselves in prison for the first time have stated to us that they found the initial days especially difficult, encountering various problems, from those everyday, such as a lack of toiletries, "three of us use the same razor to shave", to constant tensions in their rooms – in their opinions, a consequence of overcrowding. For instance, in the Varaždin County Prison there is a room where nine detainees are held. All penal institutions still do not have specially designated rooms for unsupervised conjugal visits, although they house inmates who meet the conditions to be approved such visits. A positive example can be found in the Šibenik County Prison, which, despite the lack of space, prepared a suitable space for the privilege, and began granting it to inmates. Staff shortages continue to have a significant impact on the functioning of penal institutions. For instance, the staffing requirements of the Sisak County Prison Treatment department are for seven employees, but only the post of head has been filled. As the work that should be performed by an administrative clerk cannot be deferred, such tasks are temporarily performed by a nurse, which means that only one of the two nurses employed perform work related to healthcare for prisoners, which is certainly not enough. Work of the Head of the Department is mainly focused on administrative tasks, tied to legally mandated deadlines, while only a smaller portion of her working time can be dedicated to implementing individual prisoners' programmes. Regarding the work with remand prisoners, she usually works with them only on their request. 8 Over the last few annual reports, we have highlighted the negative impact the staff shortage has had on the level of respect for the human rights of persons deprived of their liberty, among other things. Likewise, in its 2017 Report, the CPT recommended that the RC fill the vacant positions in penal institutions in line with the job classification plan. At the same time, numerous international documents, such as the Mandela Rules, the European Prison Rules, the Council of Europe Recommendation R (97) 12, draw a connection between respect for the human rights of persons deprived of their liberty and respect for the human rights of those employed in places of detention. With this in mind, during our visits, we gave those staff members who work directly with persons deprived of their liberty the opportunity to fill out anonymous surveys about their working conditions. Treatment staff and legal staff find that the biggest problems lie in the lack of proper equipment and resources for their work, excessive administrative work and the treatment of the staff by prisoners, that is, insufficient protection from prisoners' threats. In addition to extrinsic sources of motivation, such as regular pay, early retirement benefits for arduous work, and the working hours, they also cite intrinsic sources of motivation as the advantages of their work, such as working with people, the awareness that they helped