2012 Annual Report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner
This year 41% of the recommendations were green.These recommendations were not compliance
issues and were generally made to assist the prisons to improve the efficiency and effectiveness
of their interception processes.
8.4 Summary
In the reporting year 93 prison inspections were conducted by my inspection team. All of
the prisons responded positively to their inspections and overall the responses to the
recommendations have been encouraging.
I am pleased to report that the percentage of poor performing prisons has reduced by almost 50
percent this year. I am also encouraged by the fact that a large number of the prisons have clearly
improved their level of compliance.
It is clear that managers and staff are more accustomed to the process and have a better
understanding of the systems and procedures that should be in place. A number of prisons
now have a dedicated team of well trained staff to conduct the interception of communications
and experience shows that this model always achieves better standards. There is also evidence
from a larger number of the inspections that managers and staff are committed to achieving
the best possible level of compliance with the rules governing the interception of prisoners’
communications.
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