8) Period of Detention and the Possibility of Release It is known that prisoners are released upon the expiration of their term of detention at PPC No. 15 at Yodok, a high-security camp. However, no prisoners are released from any other PPC that are categorized as maximumsecurity camps. As in the case of PPC No. 15 at Yodok, it has also been established that prisoners are released upon expiration of their detention terms from PPC No. 18 at Pukchang, a facility under the control of the police. It is concluded that, with the exception of PPC No. 18 at Pukchang, which is under police control, prisoners are released only from PPC No.15 at Yodok. Most PPC are maximum-security camps in which prisoners are detained for life and terms of detention carry little significance. It has been revealed that prisoners have terms of detention only in the PPC No. 15 at Yodok. Other than a few exceptions, former prisoners from PPC No. 15 at Yodok were not aware of their detention terms when they were admitted. Prisoners who’d been sentenced to relatively short terms of detention, three years or so, were aware of their detention terms but those prisoners detained for extended periods of time, e.g ten years, were ignorant of this grim fact when admitted to the PPC. The survey makes clear that most single offenders without family at the Yodok High-security Camp were given three-year detention terms and released upon expiration of their terms. Interviews indicated that their detention terms were often extended by one year or more in cases of the violation of rules and regulations of the camp. However, those prisoners that were accompanied by their families or who were not told the length of their detention terms at admission to the PPC were detained for periods longer than three years. It appears that offenders of less serious offenses are sent to PPC No. 15 without family members for a detention term of three years while offenders of more serious offenses are sent there accompanied by families and detained for much longer periods of time. The situation appears to be same at PPC No. 18 at Pukchang. 3. The Internal Control System of PPC 1) Operational Responsibility and Security System In the absence of official information as to the governmental organization responsible for the operation of PPC, the only related information available for verification is the testimonies of North Koreans. The information available to date reveals that a PPC can detain up to 50,000 people, depending on the size of each PPC, and the 7th Bureau of State Security Agency under the Secretariat Bureau of Central Committee of the Workers’ Party (Organization Bureau of the Central Party) is responsible 78