Criminal detention

“ Yet the seclusion and detention of individuals who had done no wrong, was long the rule in most civilised countries, and many prisons, which are to all intents and purposes non-criminal, have existed and been constantly filled with unfortunate persons guilty of no real offence against the law. ”

“ Pretrial preventive detention is authorized to protect the individual, to assure that he will not elude trial, or to prevent his committing further criminal acts. Detention is ordinarily limited to five days for investigation of a crime or to thirty days if the person has been arrested and is awaiting trial. ”

“ Kirchwey that women, young prisoners, witnesses, and insane persons should be excluded from the county jail and provided for in separate detention houses. When this is done, however, there will still remain an indefinite number of men, which may be 200, 300, or at times even 500, who must be held in detention awaiting the action of the grand jury or the criminal courts. ”

“ Preventive Detention is the name given to a form of custody, provided by the Prevention of Crime Act, 1908, for the protection of the public from the Habitual Criminal. The Judge has the power of passing a sentence of penal servitude for the particular crime charged in the indictment, and to pass a further sentence ordering, from the determination of the sentence of penal servitude, that the prisoner shall be detained for a period not exceeding ten years in Preventive Detention. ”

“ If the detention is intended not so much as a punishment, but rather as a means of restraining the vagrant from his debased mode of life, the risk of his escaping need not be regarded so seriously as in the case of a criminal committed to prison to expiate his crime. ”

“ This measure introduces a new departure in the treatment of professional crime by initiating a system of detention for habitual criminals (see Recidivism) . The act attempts the reformation of young offenders by giving the court power to pass sentence of detention in a Borstal institution for a term of not less than one year nor more than three on those between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one who by reason of criminal habits or tendencies or association with persons of bad character require such instruction and discipline as appear most conducive to their reformation. ”

“ In England and America, Probation: in France and Belgium, the 'sursis à l'exécution de la peine'—all mark the reluctance to resort to fixed penalties when Justice can be satisfied by other means. England, I believe, stands alone in its adoption of the system of Preventive Detention—one of the most notable reforms of recent years for dealing with the Habitual Criminal. The success of the system, so far as it has gone, goes far to justify belief in the virtue of Indetermination of sentence. ”

“ Their principal proposal was that the class of habitual Vagrants should be defined by Statute to include any person who had been convicted three or more times within a period of twelve months of certain offences, such as "Begging," "Sleeping-Out," or refusing task in Casual Wards, and that such a person should be treated, as far as possible, not as a criminal, but as a person requiring detention on account of his mode of life. ”

“ The detenu is the convict. French criminal law recognizes imprisonment of three degrees, corresponding in legal distinction to these three degrees of suspicion, inquiry, and conviction. Mere imprisonment is a light penalty for misdemeanor, but detention is imprisonment with hard labor, a severe and sometimes degrading punishment. Hence, those persons who nowadays are in favor of the penitentiary system would upset an admirable scheme of criminal law in which the penalties are judiciously graduated, and they will end by punishing the lightest peccadilloes as severely as the greatest crimes. ”

“ Any police officer may, without warrant, arrest any person found at large in repsect of whom there is in existence a detention order made by the Minister under the provisions of section 3 of this Order and shall forthwith report such arrest to the Commissioner of Police. ”

“ If, on the other hand, he will not exert himself to embrace the opportunity, he is kept under detention until the maximum limit of his sentence is reached. The authorities urge for legislation making the sentence absolutely indeterminate, so that those who resist the reformatory measures may be kept in prison for a period co-terminous with that of their resistance. The principles upon which the system is founded are developed in a course of training described as a three M course, i.e. ”

“ Under these conditions the jail will become what it ought to be, a humane place of detention for persons awaiting trial, bearing in mind that such prisoners are presumed to be innocent in the eyes of the law until the courts find them guilty and determine the question of their subsequent treatment. ”

“ The law of habeas corpus is recognized, by which anyone detained more than twenty-four hours without having his case submitted to the proper authorities may present himself, or be represented by a proxy, before the judge with a complaint, and the judge is bound to investigate the arrest and to decree the liberty of the detained person in case no legal reason for his further detention can be established. ”

“ The original arrest and detention were lawful. A person, duly charged with a felony in one state, may, if he flees to another, be arrested, without a warrant, by a peace officer in the state in which he is found, and be detained for the reasonable time necessary to enable a requisition to be made. ”

“ For those detainees who will not be tried before a tribunal, the Order authorizes indefinite and unreviewable detention, based on nothing more than the President’s written determination that an individual is subject to its terms. ”

“ For organizers, leaders and key members of organized crime, the legal conditions shall be strictly complied with for granting bail, non-prosecution, probation, commutation, parole, or temporary serving of a sentence outside prison, and criminal punishment such as deprivation of political rights, confiscation of property, and fines shall be sternly meted out. ”

“ Any man, whatever may be his place or his employment, other than those to whom the law gives the right of arrest, who shall give, sign, execute or cause to be executed an order or arrest for a citizen, or anyone, who, even in the case of arrest authorised by law, shall conduct, receive, or retain a citizen in a place of detention not publicly and legally designated, and any custodian or jailer who shall contravene the provisions of articles 14 and 15 above, shall be guilty of the crime of arbitrary imprisonment. ”

“ If it is certain that he has committed the crime, he should either be excluded from social intercourse or sentenced to mate good the damage, provided the criminal is not dangerous and the crime not grave. It is absurd to sentence a man to five or six days imprisonment for some insignificant misdemeanor. You lower him in the eyes of the public, subject him to surveillance by the police, and send him to prison from whence he will go out more corrupted than he was on entering it. It is absurd to impose segregation in prison for small errors. ”

“ No one can be seized except in order to be brought before the officer of police; and no one can be put under arrest or detained except in virtue of a warrant of arrest from the officers of police or from the Executive Directory, in the case of article 145, or an order of arrest either from a tribunal or the foreman of the jury of accusation, or of a decree of accusation from the legislative body in the case where it has authority to pronounce, or of a judicial judgment of condemnation to prison or correctional detention. ”

“ After they have seen the prisoner emerge from the cells, pale, hollow-eyed, bedraggled, and have beheld the tears of his wife and children as they crowd around the husband and father, they begin to realize the horrible consequences of a criminal prosecution and to regret that they ever took the steps which have brought the wrong-doer where he is. ”

“ The word of the police is on the side of orderly procedure, nonoppressive conduct, meticulous regard for the sensibilities of the prisoner. There is the word of the accused against the police. But his voice has little persuasion.
We do know that long detention, while the prisoner is shut off from the outside world, is a recurring practice in this country-for those of lowly birth, for those without friends or status. [5] We also know that detention incommunicado was the secret of the inquisition and is the secret of successful interrogation in Communist countries. ”

“ No one who lays any claim to enlightened opinion upon subjects of this character believes any longer that arrest and incarceration in a penal or corrective institution is a final answer to the social obligations of the community in behalf of the so-called casual vagrant, the wandering citizen, the itinerant wage-worker, or petty criminal, as they are miscalled. It may be true, perhaps, that a three or six months’ imprisonment is the only present available means for “straightening up a drunk” or getting some “evil spirit” out of a young man’s heart. ”

“ If a court of law, having found the grounds for a detainee’s detention unjustified, orders his or her release, such a person shall not be detained again on the same grounds unless the state shows good cause to a court of law prior to such re-detention. ”

“ If there is evidence that a suspect might flee the country, police may detain that person for up to 24 hours pending a formal charge. To continue holding a detainee, police must bring the detainee before a judge and the court must charge the individual at the latest by the end of the day following the arrest. The court must then issue an arrest warrant stating the grounds for detention ”

“ In order to save, as far as possible, first offenders from the contamination of prison life, and to prevent the formation of further evil companionships, and the recklessness which follows the loss of character entailed by imprisonment, we would offer, in the Police and Criminal Courts, to take such offenders under our wing as were anxious to come and willing to accept our regulations. ”

“ When I say that every State prison is to be a reformatory, I except, of course, from its operation, those sentenced for life for murder, or other capital offenses, and those who have proved themselves incorrigible by repeated violations of their parole. ”

“ We are aware that in some countries, in framing their penal laws and discipline, the only object appears to be to prevent the continued perpetration of offences by the imprisonment of those convicted as offenders, and by the severity of their punishment to deter them from a repetition of their crimes after their discharge; the example of which punishment, it is desired, shall also operate to restrain others from entering upon and pursuing an equally criminal course. ”

“ The prints and Bertillon measurements of new arrivals at government prisons and jails will also be sent there for classification, none of this work being done at prisons as heretofore. The men held in federal jails, charged with crimes, are also to have their finger-prints taken, and these sent to the central bureau. If the expert in charge of this bureau ascertains that a man indicted for crime has served a previous term in prison, this fact is to be communicated to the United States judge and district attorney, and if convicted the criminal is to be given the full limit of sentence. ”

“ All prisoners except those charged with felony or treason can demand that they be brought before a judge to test the validity of their detention. All persons charged with felony or treason must be tried at the next sessions or else admitted to bail, or, failing this, be discharged. ”

“ No person, in a case in which his detention is authorised by the law, can be brought to or detained except in the places legally and publicly designated to serve for jails, court houses, or houses of detention. ”

“ Whether the minimum level is attained in a particular case depends on all the circumstances, such as the nature of the treatment, its duration, its physical and mental effects and, possibly, the age, sex and health of the person concerned .... (5) The detention of a person in prison as a punishment lawfully imposed inevitably involves a deprivation of liberty and brings with it certain disadvantages and a level of suffering that is unavoidable because that is inherent in detention. But lawful detention does not deprive a person of his Article 3 rights”. ”

“ Regrettable as it may seem, no police force, however large, could arrest all the violators of every law, and no system of courts could dispose of the multitude of offenders. We do the best we can and make an example of a few, hoping thus to persuade the others to be good. If every citizen undertook to exercise his right of arresting every individual whom he saw committing petty crime, the business of the community would come to a standstill and the magistrates' courts would be hopelessly congested with great hordes of prisoners, irate witnesses, and gratuitous policemen. ”

“ Power is given to the Secretary of State, on the application of any Police Authority, to certify any police cells, bridewells, or other similar places provided by the authority, to be suitable places for the detention of persons sentenced to terms not exceeding four days, and may make regulations for the inspection of places so provided. ”

“ He releases hundreds of innocent persons, every year. He restores to family and friends those who have been detained for insignificant offences. He calls from the cells of the prison such as may have done acts that would have lead to a criminal life, and he gives them their freedom before association with the bad has weakened their moral perception,—before they can have formed resolutions to revenge upon society the offence of their incarceration. ”