Country

Poland

Detention issue

FRA research findings

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Legal instruments & key provisions

Legal instrument Key provision
Executive Penal Code (Ustawa z dnia 6 czerwca 1997 r. Kodeks karny wykonawczy)Prison officials should maintain order and discipline. Prison units may be supervised with a system of CCTV. CCTV cameras may be placed in residential cells, corridors, baths, visiting rooms, work places and exercise yards. The prison director is responsible for deciding which places should be included in the video surveillance system. All residential cells should be equipped with call buttons. The only protection measure indicated in the Executive Penal Code is the placement of a prisoner under special protection in conditions of increased isolation.
Act on the Prison Service (Ustawa z dnia 9 kwietnia 2010 r. o Służbie Więziennej)Prison officials should maintain order and discipline. Prisoners should be classified in order to create adequate conditions in penitentiary units, guarantee prisoners’ personal safety. During classification, several circumstances should be taken into account: gender, age, recidivism, deliberate nature of the crime committed by prisoners, the length of the sentence to be served, health conditions, addictions, degree of prisoners’ demoralization and threat to society, nature of the crime committed by the prisoners.

NATIONAL PREVENTIVE MECHANISM RECOMMENDATIONS

Year Recommendation Report
2017During one of the visits, NPM representatives came across a situation in which a prisoner had beaten another prisoner to death. Despite this, the prisoner was not isolated immediately after the offense, but only moved to another cell in which he remained for a few minutes with another prisoner. According to the NPM, it directly exposed the prisoner in the other cell to the risk of falling victim to aggression. In another unit, the NPM identified a prisoner who was deaf and mute. Due to the language barrier, this prisoner, was unable to communicate with prison service officers during conflicts with other prisoners, and therefore felt that his arguments were a lost cause. Report details
2022The lack of procedures defining how to proceed also remains an issue, when a prisoner reports that he or she has been subjected to torture or violence or when there is a suspicion of torture or violence against a prisoner. The lack of a clear system of action leads to violations that are revealed during subsequent visits of the National Torture Prevention Mechanism to penitentiary units. For the past 1.5 years or so, the NPM has observed a significant increase in reports by inmates of physical and psychological violence against them in various penitentiary units. Even in cases where detainees report to the staff of the unit or to law enforcement authorities that violence is being used against them, they have little chance of proving their allegations. Signals received by the NPM indicate that incidents of violence are most often perpetrated in unmonitored areas (common rooms, storerooms, bathing vestibules, baths, the room of the warden, psychologist, ward duty rooms and even corridors). The CCTV recordings provide an opportunity to observe the state in which a detainee leaves an unmonitored room and his/her possible injuries (e.g. caused by a beating). In the opinion of the NPM, one of the mechanisms for the prevention of torture is training, which is analysed each time by NPM representatives during visits. The NPM has reservations about the quantity and quality of the training provided. The vast majority of trainings are internal trainings, conducted within a given unit by its staff (e.g. by a psychologist or an educator). In the NPM's opinion, there is a lack of specialised training conducted by external entities emphasising the issues of: international human rights standards, discrimination (inter alia on the grounds of disability, age, sexual orientation and gender identity, origin), interpersonal communication, de-escalation of tension in conflict situations, ways of coping with stress, counteracting professional burnout, dealing with persons requiring special supervision and working with vulnerable groups (e.g. with elderly people, people with disabilities, people with incomplete mobility, people with mental disorders, somatically ill people or people from the LGBT+ community), as well as practical use of the Istanbul Protocol in daily work. The risk of inappropriate treatment of detainees may also result from the numerous staff shortages in the Prison Service – especially in the security department. Overworked, overburdened with additional tasks, frustrated and burned-out officers can move much more easily towards inappropriate behaviour towards detainees. Report details
2023Not every person placed in a penitentiary unit undergoes a medical examination. Only detainees admitted "from liberty" are compulsorily examined, while those transported from another prison or remand centre are not. Usually, the procedure is limited to an interview by a nurse and a possible referral to a doctor, but there is no compulsory medical examination of all new arrivals, combined with a visual inspection of the body. This practice creates a serious gap in the system for the prevention of torture and ill-treatment. Indeed, regardless of the medical examination prior to transport, the lack of an examination upon arrival at the unit prevents the detection of traces of violence that may have occurred during the convoy. Moreover, the NPM's experience shows that the medical examination by a doctor is often superficial and limited to taking a history of the patient, without performing a body inspection (physical examination). The limitation by medical personnel to taking a history from the patient without viewing the body makes it impossible to detect signs of violence and renders this minimum guarantee of torture prevention inoperative. Report details