| 2022 | The NPM receives numerous signals regarding the incarceration of persons deprived of their liberty in penitentiary units significantly distant from their place of residence, which may consequently lead to difficulties in maintaining contact with their families (in particular in the form of visits). This problem affects women in particular, as there are fewer wards or prison units dedicated to them. The problem of inmates serving their sentences of imprisonment in prisons located far from their place of residence was described, inter alia, in the Commissioner for Human Rights' general address to the Minister of Justice of 21 February 2024.34 The Commissioner for Human Rights indicated that the requirement to place prisoners in the appropriate prison closest to their place of residence was abolished by the 2012 amendments to the Executive Penal Code, which translated, according to the NPM's conclusions from the visitations, into a particularly difficult situation for women in this regard, caused by the insufficient number of women's wards in penitentiary units (27 in total, out of which 4 for female detainees in pre-trial detention). In complaints addressed to the Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights, female inmates have repeatedly raised problems resulting from the lack of places for women in penitentiary units, such as: refusal of incarceration in a unit closer to home; incarceration at a long distance from home and the impossibility of visitation for this reason by elderly and sick parents; the impossibility of being incarcerated in a unit where there is a chance of gaining paid employment; the family's lack of financial means to travel; and the lack of contact with their children in foster care due to the long distance between the penitentiary unit and these places; the serving of a custodial sentence in closed-type wards despite the decision of the penitentiary commission to a semi-open unit; placing the detainee in an isolation cell located in the pavilion for men, which caused her feeling of insecurity.
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