NPM overview
UNCAT ratification
29 July 1987
OPCAT ratification
4 December 2012
Natioanl Preventive Mechanism
Austrian Ombudsman Board (Volksanwaltschaft)
NPM Legal Framework
Ombudsman Act (amended in January 2012)
OPCAT Implementation Act (OPCAT Durchführungsgesetz - Federal Law Gazette I No. 1/2012, 10 January 2012)
NPM operationalisation
Since July 2012
NPM structure
Austrian Ombudsman Board (AOB) along with one federal and six regional commissions. Specific OPCAT Secretariat within the AOB, providing administrative support on NPM matters.
NPM composition
Regional commissions: 54 members (34 women)
Austrian Ombudsman Board staff: predominantly operates as NPM (70% are women)
Facts and Figures
Prison | Women in prison - Characteristics | Prisons |
|---|---|---|
Total prison 9,049 | Older Women (60 years or older) 32 | Total number of 17 |
Women in prison (total) 615| 6.8% |
| Correctional institutions (exclusive for women) 1 |
|
| Judicial prisons for men and women with separate women’s sections 16 |
Source: World Prison Brief, 2024;1 Austrian Ombudsman Board, 2024 | Source: World Prison Brief, 2024; Austrian Ombudsman Board, 2024 | Source: Austrian Ombudsman Board, 2023 |
Recommendations
Body searches
Body searches should only be carried out in the presence of two prison guards of the same gender as the searched person.
Body searches should generally be conducted in a way that the person being subjected to the search only undresses one part of the body at a time.
Body searches with removal of clothes shall be documented in writing due to the intensity of the infringement. The staff shall record the purpose and the specific circumstances of the body search in order to ensure subsequent reviewability and preclude abuses.
Accommodation and food
In general, women’s sections shall be run as shared accommodation.
Women should only be held in closed detention in justified individual cases.
Life in prison: regime and activities
The range of occupational opportunities for women detainees should be expanded. Women detainees should have the opportunity to get to know various employment types in different companies.
It is highly recommended to ensure that men and women detainees work together in the prisons’ own companies.
Sanitary facilities and personal hygiene
It is necessary to ensure that the increased need for hygiene of women detainees are taken into account, especially during their menstruation.
During their menstrual cycle, women should have the opportunity to take a shower every day without having to ask for it.
The range for sanitary articles available to women detainees should include tampons (in different sizes).
Pregnant and nursing women
Pregnant women must get the same medical exams which pregnant women outside prison have access to, i.e. regular preventive health check-ups offered to them within the so-called “mother-child-booklet”.
Pregnant women should give birth outside the correctional institution, i.e. in a regular hospital, and should have access to a midwife or a female prison staff with experience in childbirth while in prison, prior and after the birth of their child.
Older women
Prisons must ensure that the detention rooms are equipped for older women with disabilities, that medical and nursing care is provided and that the staff is adequately trained.
Detention issues
The Austrian NPM has focused its attention on the situation of women in prison since the beginning of its activities in 2012. Findings revealed that women in prison were discriminated against in many areas, especially due to their small number in prison, including with regard to employment. Their employment rate was lower compared to men, and the activities were mostly limited to cleaning or simple tasks, which can be compared to household chores, such as ironing.
The Austrian Federal Ministry of Justice followed up on the NPM’s recommendations and, in 2016, it adopted a decree on the “Minimum standards for women in Austrian correctional institutions”, setting the standards for the accommodation and treatment of women in remand and in penitentiary institutions.
Body searches
Women have to undergo searches in rooms intended for this purpose, when they are admitted or transferred to a correctional institution. The same obligation applies upon release. These examinations are body searches which entail the removal of clothes, and they are mandatory for all inmates, men and women. Body searches with removal of clothes are also carried out when an inmate is transferred to a specially secured cell in case they pose a danger to others or themselves.
Law requires that body searches with removal of clothes can only be carried out in the presence of two prison guards of the same gender as the searched person, and when persons of the other gender are absent.
However, findings from the NPM revealed that in some cases these requirements are not met.2 Women deprived of liberty reported instances when they were not allowed to put on their underpants before uncovering their upper bodies. They also reported that they had to squat, cough and spread their legs without any specific reason. The prison guards inspected all body orifices. Women detainees found these proceedings very humiliating and unpleasant. Some women also reported that the door to the room in which they had to undress was open or not completely closed so that third parties (male staff) could see inside the room. In one correctional institution, a camera monitors the body searches of persons deprived of liberty, which can then be seen on a monitor at the prison guard’s base.3
In addition, the NPM demanded that body searches should generally be conducted in a way that the person being subjected to the search only bares one part of the body at a time.4 Furthermore, the NPM recommends that body searches with removal of clothes shall be documented in writing due to the intensity of the infringement. The staff shall record the purpose and the specific circumstances of the body search in order to ensure subsequent reviewability and preclude abuses.5
Accommodation
The 2016 Minimum Standards for Women detained in Austrian correctional institutions enacted by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Justice in spring 2016 establish the standards for the placement and treatment of female detainees in remand and in correctional institutions. According to this, the detention of women ought to be by way of shared accommodation, in which the detention rooms are open. This aims to lead women detainees back to a life of social responsibility.
On a general note, it can be said that by far not all women are detained in shared accommodation. This is explained by the fact that not all women deprived of liberty are suitable for this form of detention, and that many correctional institutions do not have the staff to run the departments in such an open way.
The NPM criticised6 that only one out of three women sections in the only correctional institution exclusively dedicated to women (and this only partly) was run as a shared accommodation. As a response, the correctional institution established areas for shared accommodation in all three women sections. A glass portal at the remand prisoners’ department was moved in order to expand the residential group detention.
Life in prison: regime and activities
In its Minimum Standards for Women in Detention, the Austrian Federal Ministry of Justice provides that persons deprived of liberty should be screened at the beginning of the detention period to identify which occupations would be appropriate for them and to establish any previous knowledge they might have. According to these Standards, men and women should work together in the prisons’ own companies and job rotations should ensure that women get to know various types of occupations.
Findings from the NPM’s visits7 revealed that the employment rate of women detainees is a little bit lower than the one of men. In addition, the quality of this employment is often objectionable, because women are mainly offered cleaning jobs.
In one correctional institution, the NPM found that women are not allowed to work together with men. The reason for that, according to the information provided by the Ministry of Justice, is the lack of separate sanitary facilities or changing rooms, whose installation is planned in the course of the renovation of the building. This installation, however, will still take a few years.
Sanitary facilities and personal hygiene
In the course of its visits to correctional institutions, the NPM8 was informed that only employed detainees had the opportunity to take a shower every day. Unemployed detainees were only allowed to use the shower rooms twice a week. The NPM recommends that women should be able to shower at any time during their period and that they should be able to request access to the shower facilities during that time without feeling ashamed. The NPM was assured repeatedly that women could have a shower every day at least during their menstrual cycle. It has always been possible to use the shower rooms upon request. In principle, women’s sections are being run as “relaxed departments”. The detention room doors are open from Monday to Thursday from 7.00 am to 3.15 pm, from 7.00 am to 11.15 am from Friday to Sunday and on holidays.
Finding from the NPM’s visit to one correctional institution revealed that women detainees were not provided with enough sanitary articles. Toothpaste and soap were available, but not tampons. The Austrian Federal Ministry of Justice stated that sanitary articles are distributed on demand. The Ministry further explained that detainees could ask for toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap and sanitary napkins. In the NPM’s view, sanitary articles should include not only sanitary napkins but also tampons, given the increased need for hygiene during menstruation. Women detainees should be given these articles; they should not have to purchase them from the kiosk themselves.
Contact with the outside world
For women, contact with the family, especially children, is very important. Women have been complaining that their children can hardly visit them in prison, since visiting hours, especially for remand prisoners, are hardly ever offered in the evenings or on weekends. For schoolchildren, a visit under these circumstances is almost impossible. The NPM obtained a commitment by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Justice that visiting hours will at least be adjusted for the remand prisoners, for whom no supervision of the conversations with their visitors have been ordered. Women in special situations of vulnerability
Women in special situations of vulnerability
Pregnant and nursing women
Another major issue in relation to women in detention are always pregnant women and mothers of small children. Sensitive areas are the care of pregnant inmates, the procedure of giving birth and whether the baby or toddler should stay with the mother in the detention facility and for how long. In Austria, there are currently9 five children who are in prison with their mothers. These inmates and their children are housed in a specific ward for women with children. Four children were born in detention in 2018. On average, children stay with their mothers in prison for 144 days.10
In relation to pregnant women in prison, the most important recommendation from the NPM is that these women must get the same medical exams which pregnant women in the “outside world” have access to, i.e. regular preventive health check-ups offered to them within the so-called “mother-child-booklet”. The NPM further recommends that pregnant inmates should give birth outside the correctional institution, i.e. in a regular hospital, and that they should have access to a midwife or a female prison staff with experience in childbirth while in prison, prior and after the birth of their child.
Older women
As of 1 February 2024, 632 women were in prison: 600 of them are under the age of 60; 14 of them are between the age of 60 and 65; and 18 of them are older than 65. At the moment, the oldest female inmate in Austria is 92 years old. She was sentenced to 12 years in prison at this advanced age, which means that she will most likely remain in prison until her death.
The demographic development is also reflected in the prison population, i.e. inmates are getting older and are reaching an age at which they will inevitably need more care. The Austrian NPM draws attention to this and to the fact that solutions need to be found to guarantee that these inmates can age and die with dignity. Older inmates have other needs and requirements. They want quiet living and a place of retreat. Prisons must provide settings, which take this into account as well. It must be ensured that the detention rooms are equipped for older women with disabilities, that medical and nursing care is provided and that the staff is adequately trained.
Since the number of women in prison is significantly lower than the number of male inmates, the number of elderly women in prison is even lower. This inevitably means that the specific needs of elderly women in prison are addressed even less.