Independent Monitoring and Victimisation in Prisons

Like all human beings also prisoners have the right to be protected from violence. The European Court of Human Rights considers it a state’s responsibility to secure the physical and psychological integrity of persons held in penal institutions and it has, on various occasions, held that there had been a violation of Article 3 owing to the authorities’ failure to protect prisoners from violence by other prisoners or to properly investigate a prisoner’s complaints. In its standards also the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) points at the duty of care which includes the protection of prisoners from other prisoners. In fact, monitoring bodies, like the CPT, are in a unique position to observe patterns of violence and crime in Europe’s prisons: indeed, the facilities offered to such monitoring bodies (unrestricted access to places of detention, access to medical files and the possibility to speak in private to prisoners) give monitoring bodies the possibility to gain insight into the problem of victimisation that can complement victim surveys or qualitative research behind bars.