Severe criticism of the Swedish Prison and Probation Service, Borås Prison, for taking coercive measures in clear contravention of the principle of proportionality

Summary of the decision: Borås Prison intercepted a telephone call between an inmate and his relatives. A suspicion then arose that they intended to hand over drugs to him during a visit that day.

To mitigate the risk that prohibited objects will be smuggled in during a visit, a prison may decide that a visit is to be either supervised by staff or take place in a separate visiting room in which the transfer of contraband is impossible. Furthermore, pursuant to the Act on Imprisonment (SFS 2010:610), a visit may be conditional on the visitor submitting to a body search. As a last resort, a visit may be refused.

The prison did not utilise any of these control measures to mitigate the risk of drugs being smuggled in, nor was the visit cancelled. Instead, the prison allowed the visit to take place unsupervised, after which the inmate was segregated for over 24 hours in order to conduct a body (toilet) search to check whether drugs had been smuggled in. He was then placed in a cell with limited equipment under constant surveillance by prison officers.

The Parliamentary Ombudsman notes that the prison’s processing posed the risk that drugs would be smuggled in, and that the prison then used highly invasive coercive measures against the inmate. According to the Parliamentary Ombudsman, these actions were clearly contrary to the principle of proportionality and completely unacceptable. As such, the prison is deserving of severe criticism.