A/HRC/19/48 detentions tend to be either financially motivated or political in nature. Both kinds of arbitrary arrests are facilitated and perpetuated by the structural weaknesses of the criminal justice system, including the lack of resources. B. Prison conditions, torture and ill-treatment in detention Existing recommendations 8. Immediate steps should be taken to improve penitentiary conditions and to reduce overcrowding. Moreover, it was recommended that the State adopt a law and take effective measures to protect persons reporting torture or ill-treatment from threats or intimidation. The High Commissioner further called on the Government to allocate adequate resources to the penitentiary system, inter alia, to guarantee food and health-care supplies.7 Measures taken by the Government and current situation 9. Albeit diminishing since 2010, the number of deaths in prison remains high. Between January and September 2011, UNJHRO documented 41 cases of death in detention as a result of chronic malnutrition, severe ill-treatment or lack of access to basic health care. This decrease is largely due to initiatives taken at the local level by prison personnel and NGOs. The State is obliged to provide food to the inmates; however, no prison in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been allotted a sufficient budget for this purpose and prisoners remain almost completely dependent on food brought by families or charities. Besides the scarcity of food, prison conditions are rendered even harsher by the lack of basic infrastructure, abject sanitary conditions and the heavily overcrowded environment. Moreover, inmates remain vulnerable to torture and illtreatment by penitentiary personnel. 10. The deplorable living conditions of the detainees and the dilapidated prison infrastructure continue to prompt riots and prison escapes. These escapes are undermining efforts of the judiciary to fight impunity. For example, on 7 September 2011, 967 inmates, including 271 accused of sexual violence and rape, escaped from Kasapa prison in Lubumbashi, Katanga, following an attack on the prison by unidentified armed men. 11. Despite legislative progress, the overall implementation of reform initiatives remains weak. On 20 July 2011, a law was promulgated by the President explicitly criminalizing torture.8 Throughout the reporting period, some steps were made towards restructuring the management and human resources allocated to the penitentiary system. However, these efforts were not accompanied by sufficient budget efforts. As a result, penitentiary staff remain severely underpaid, undedicated and susceptible to corruption. 12. Prison administration continues to be highly dysfunctional. Consequently, pre-trial detainees are frequently forgotten and the legislation on conditional release remains highly underused. Overall, the lack of coherence and consistency in the implementation of reform initiatives undermines their efficiency. In this respect, the encompassing Strategic Prison Reform Plan, devised in 2009 by the Ministry of Justice in cooperation with MONUSCO,9 has still not been introduced in Parliament. 7 8 9 See footnote 3. Loi du 20 juillet 2011 portant criminalisation de la torture. As of 1 July 2010, MONUC was renamed the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO). 7