The High Commissioner urges the Ombudsman's Office to exercise permanent oversight with regard to prisons and jails.

161. The Special Representative again calls attention to and reiterates the other recommendations on prisons contained in his first report.

Some of the US scandals tie American prison personnel directly to Abu Ghraib.

Violent crimes attract much longer custodial terms, increasing the number of women in prison at any one time.

21. Since December 1993, the Centre for Human Rights has elaborated and implemented the prisons assistance programme.

It recognizes the significant progress in prisons policy and the recommendations we are willing to take into account in applying the appropriate corrective measures.

152. The Special Representative recommends that the results of the prison survey conducted by the Centre for Human Rights be regularly updated and provided to relevant government bodies.

With regard to prisons, the situation has slightly improved during the last years due to the efforts deployed by the penitentiary administration and the technical and financial support of the international community.

The connection is no accident. Some of the US scandals tie American prison personnel directly to Abu Ghraib.

The Ministry of Justice has prepared a draft Prisons Bill for consideration by Parliament which gives prison managers a discretionary authority to grant NGOs access to prisons.

Prisons are run by prison governors and every prison has an officer who answers to the governor for the enforcement of prison laws and regulations in the prison which he runs and for the guarding of prisoners.

Accordingly, the rule of law component would offer good offices, advice and technical assistance to support key processes in a number of areas, including constitutional development and the strengthening of legislative, judicial and correctional institutions and systems.

24. Following requests from prosecutors attending the prison assistance programme, a meeting was arranged with senior officials of the Ministry of Justice and the Chief Prosecutor of the Appeals Court to discuss possible training avenues.

116. The Human Rights Division believes that a systematic updating of prison information must be carried out in the immediate future, in order to guarantee the existence of true and reliable data about the prison population in El Salvador, as well as the adoption of measures so as to monitor observance of the law in detention centres.

To that end, agreement has been reached with the Director of Detention Centres as to the scope of the Division apos s work in the prisons and the facilities to be granted to ONUSAL observers to enter prison centres, where they would conduct a quot minimum investigation quot that would give them an overview of the situation in the prisons.

In addition, 40 copies of Dream for Peace, 200 large colour posters and 100 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) posters have been distributed to the court, prison officials and local non governmental organizations at the prison training sessions in PJ, Kompong Cham and Takmao prisons.

He was also impressed by the vitality of those organizations, which are presently active in several areas, including human rights education, monitoring, legal counselling and defence, prisons, promotion of human rights of vulnerable groups such as women, children, elderly persons, minorities and disabled persons.

113. It is, therefore, encouraging that the Ministry of Justice itself has submitted to the Legislative Assembly a bill on prisons that starts with the full recognition that a man who commits an offence, simply because he is human, should be treated as a human being, and not be denied the benefits and prerogatives to which he is entitled as such.