Our study has led us to a very clear conclusion about the importance of detention practice, particularly, that is, the safeguards for detainees or suspects in the initial hours or days after arrest. All the analyses that we have conducted show indisputably that improving these guarantees and limiting incommunicado detention in practice will significantly reduce torture. We have also found that investigating and prosecuting torturers, and independent monitoring of detention centres and prisons, make important contributions to preventing torture. These findings will not come as a surprise to many practitioners in the field, but they alter the order of priorities of many discussions, especially at the intergovernmental level, where monitoring bodies are strongly promoted and the prosecution of torturers is seen as the key to torture prevention. From the start, we recognized that our findings could have important implications for future practice. We offer here some conclusions in the hope that practitioners at all levels will find them useful when they plan future work.

The message from our findings is one of cautious optimism. It is apparent that torture prevention can be effective and that the priorities set over the past three or four decades at international, regional, and national levels have been broadly correct. When opportunities to torture are reduced, the incidence of torture falls; and if torturers are effectively investigated and prosecuted, it falls further. Monitoring can also be effective by identifying systemic problems and promoting reforms of law and practice. The lesson to be drawn is that, while some priorities may need to be reordered, patient application of these basic preventive measures is likely to yield results.

Of course, the prevailing political and social factors may impede prevention or make it possible – context matters. Nevertheless, while success is not guaranteed, when favourable preconditions and political commitment are both present, these are the measures that are most likely to be effective.