In 2025, the Ombudsman visited detention facilities and correctional institutions in Greenland. After the monitoring visits, the Ombudsman gives a number of recommendations to the Prison and Probation Service in Greenland and to Greenland Police. He also starts follow-up investigations of several matters.
The recommendations concern, among other things, conditions that affect the detainees’ health and safety-related circumstances.
The Ombudsman’s recommendations to Greenland Police are thus aimed at the police’s checking on detainees and the police’s self-monitoring of the physical conditions and the electronic equipment in the detention facilities, including remedying shortcomings that affect the detainees’ safety.
In relation to the Prison and Probation Service in Greenland, the Ombudsman’s recommendations concern, among other things, screening of new inmates for suicide risk, the Prison and Probation Service’s medicines management and the inmates’ occupation.
Detainees stay a long time in police detention facilities
According to the Prison and Probation Service in Greenland, the capacity in the correctional institutions is under pressure, and that restricts the possibility of receiving detainees (remand prisoners) from the police. Even though, according to the rules, police detention facilities can generally only be used for placement of detainees for short periods, there have been detainees in recent years who have spent longer (up to several weeks and sometimes months) in police detention facilities.
In connection with the monitoring visits, the Ombudsman also found that the surveillance cameras in the detention rooms could not be switched off, with the consequence that the detainees were under electronic surveillance round the clock. The Ombudsman also found that furniture was not available in all the detention rooms that were used for detainees. For instance, one detention room, which was used for a detainee during the visit, was only furnished with a mattress on the floor.
On that basis, as part of a follow-up investigation, the Ombudsman asks the Ministry of Justice to comment on the legality of the constant camera surveillance of detainees in police detention facilities. The Ombudsman also asks whether the information on Greenland Police’s challenges with detainees’ stays in police detention facilities gives the Ministry occasion to take any action to ensure that stays take place in accordance with the rules.
‘The duration of detainees’ stays in police detention facilities and the use of camera surveillance greatly impact the detainees’ circumstances and legal rights. Therefore, further investigation of the mentioned matters is necessary so it can be ensured that the detainees are treated in accordance with their rights’, says Parliamentary Ombudsman Christian Britten Lundblad.
Female inmates placed in same unit as male inmates
Based on the monitoring visits, the Ombudsman also starts two other investigations. One is the result of the Ombudsman having found that female inmates were placed in the same closed unit as male inmates in the Correctional Institution in Nuuk. Here, the Ombudsman asks the Prison and Probation Service in Greenland to consider, among other things, the consequences that the placement has for the inmates’ access to association.
In the other investigation, the Ombudsman asks the National Police to explain what guidelines apply to the police’s use of a so-called atemi strike (hard strike to the neck).
Read the Ombudsman’s closing letters (in Danish) to the Prison and Probation Service in Greenland and Greenland Police.
Read the Ombudsman’s consultation letter to the Ministry of Justice (in Danish).
Read the Ombudsman’s consultation letter to the Prison and Probation Service in Greenland (in Danish).
Read the Ombudsman’s consultation letter to the National Police (in Danish).
Further details:
Director of International Relations Klavs Kinnerup Hede, kkh@ombudsmanden.dk