A/HRC/30/65 45. The focus on arresting and imprisoning drug users for possession or use small amounts has often resulted in prolonged pretrial detention, and persons convicted of drugrelated offences frequently constitute a very high percentage of total prisoners in many countries. Mandatory sentencing and disproportionately long sentences for drug possession or use have often resulted in sentences longer than those for serious crimes such as murder, rape, kidnapping or bank robbery, and have contributed to overincarceration and prison overcrowding.57 The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has called for reform to ensure that sentences for drug-related offences are proportionate to the nature of the crime (see E/CN.4/2003/8/Add.3, paras. 44 and 72 (a), A/HRC/4/40/Add.4, paras. 47 and 87, and A/HRC/22/44/Add.2, para. 125). The Working Group has found that overincarceration for drug-related offences contributes significantly to prison overcrowding and that overcrowding can call into question compliance with article 10 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which guarantees that everyone in detention shall be treated with humanity and respect for their dignity (see E//CN.4//2003/8/Add.3, para. 44, A/HRC/4/40/Add.3, para. 64, and A/HRC/4/40, paras. 59-80). E. Human rights violations in compulsory detention centres 46. Persons who use drugs or who are suspected of using drugs may be confined in compulsory drug detention and rehabilitation centres without trial or an evaluation of their drug dependency, often for months or years, and frequently outside the supervision of the criminal justice.58 47. Compulsory drug detention and rehabilitation centres, sometimes referred to as reeducation through labour centres, typically subject detainees to long hours of physically strenuous exercise, physical and verbal abuse, beatings, solitary confinement and enforced labour, according to the Special Rapporteur on torture (see A/HRC/22/53, paras. 40-42). The Special Rapporteur on the right to health noted that these practices are not evidencebased and medical professionals who are trained to manage drug dependence are often inaccessible. Moreover, treatment is often conducted en masse and disregarding the need for informed consent to be given on an individual basis (see A/65/255, paras. 31-33). 48. Non-consensual experimental treatment, torture, ill-treatment and sexual violence have also been reported at compulsory detention centres (see A/HRC/22/53, paras. 40-42). Imposition of compulsory treatment, at the expense of not having access to opioid substitution therapy and other harm reduction interventions, also increases the risk of disease, particularly through HIV infection (see A/65/255, para. 36). 49. These practices have been condemned by 12 United Nations entities in a joint statement in which they call for the closure of compulsory detention centres. 59 Nevertheless, compulsory drug detention centres, many of which are located in East and South-East Asia, continue to detain approximately 235,000 people.60 57 58 59 60 12 Submissions of Colectivo de Estudios Drogas y Derecho; and Harm Reduction International and Penal Reform International, p. 1. Harvard FXB Center for Health and Human Rights and Open Society Foundations, Health and Human Rights Resource Guide (2013), p. 4.7. See also Open Society Foundations, Treated with Cruelty: Abuses in the Name of Rehabilitation (2011) and “Human rights abuses in the name of drug treatment: reports from the field” (2009). Available from www.unaids.org/sites/default/files/en/media/unaids/contentassets/documents/document/2012/JC2310 _Joint%20Statement6March12FINAL_en.pdf. UNDP, Addressing the Development Dimensions of Drug Policy, p. 25.