Detention

“ THE word prison connotes crime; a place of punishment and detention where misdeeds are expiated and penalties enforced. A certain sense of shame attaches to all who have been committed to durance; for according to the old law, the “natural inherent right of liberty cannot be surrendered or forfeited unless by the commission of some great or atrocious crime.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Power to regulate place and conditions of detention.—So long as a detention order is in force in respect of any person, he shall be liable to be removed to, and detained in, such place and under such conditions, including conditions as lo maintenance, discipline, and punishment for breaches of discipline, as the Central Government or. as the case may be, the State Government, may from lime to time by general or special order specify. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Before my detention, I had thought that a prison would be at least a place of repose, where I could give myself up to study; but this was not the case at all, at least not in those where I stayed. Every moment the keeper, the jailers, the turnkeys, the purveyors, etc., came in. We were made to go down to the clerk's office to attend to our commissions. I could not read one single hour without interruption. One thing which I have heard spoken of, and which I have certainly verified, is the habit prisoners have of being destructive. It arises from their standing in need of a thousand things. ”

“ Article 293 Whoever commits any of the following acts of causing disturbances, thus disrupting public order, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than five years, criminal detention, or public surveillance:
(1) Beating another person at will and to a flagrant extent ”

“ Any person who, having been sentenced to imprisonment, corrective training, preventive detention or Borstal training or ordered to be detained in a detention centre, or having been committed to a prison or remand centre, is unlawfully at large, may be arrested by a constable without warrant and taken to the place in which he is required in accordance with law to be detained. ”

“ No man can be seized except in order to be brought before the police officer; and no man can be put under arrest or detained, except in virtue of a warrant from police officers. an order of arrest from a tribunal, a decree of accusation of the legislative body, in case the decision belongs to it, or of a sentence of condemnation to prison or correctional detention. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Rules made under section forty-seven of this Act may authorise the infliction of corporal punishment for mutiny, incitement to mutiny, or gross personal violence to an officer of a prison when committed by a male person serving a sentence of imprisonment, corrective training or preventive detention. ”

“ From 1850 to the beginning of the present century the most notable advances toward a more intelligent conception of crime and its treatment consisted in the gradual but definite triumph of the notion of detention and punishment as agencies for reformation rather than as instruments of social revenge. ”

“ It is far less costly to the State than keeping them in prison, and often leads to the establishment of an honest life. [4]
Jails and Prisons: Every community has some kind of jail for the detention of offenders. Those who come in contact with the law are often the poor and the friendless who cannot get bail. Even innocent persons may be held some time awaiting trial, or the action of the grand jury. Young girls are often detained, sometimes as witnesses, sometimes pending investigation of their own cases, sometimes as runaways from home. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Every custodian or jailer is required, without any order being able to dispense therewith, to present the detained person to the civil officer having the police of the house of detention, whenever he shall be so required by that officer. ”

“ Every attempt to evade control or at concealment at locking up time will be punished. Violent attempts will be punished by the criminal court. Any [Pg 265] one who escapes from the establishment or from outside work will be punished with detention on his recapture and anyone taking his uniform when escaping will be prosecuted for theft.
(13) Whoever foments a conspiracy amongst the inmates will either be punished for breach of discipline or be handed over to the police. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 detention or the seclusion of a person, whether at home or elsewhere, contrary to his will, and at the sacrifice of his individual liberties and civil rights, appears to us tantamount to false imprisonment, and an act opposed to the principles of English liberty, whether it be perpetrated by relatives or strangers, if done without the knowledge and sanction of the law and of its administrators. ”

“ Loafers and disorderly persons (a) and (b) are committed in the first instance for an indefinite period; "their detention in the institution (runs the regulation) , shall, as a rule, last until the principal purpose of their committal, which is their improvement—i.e., to accustom them to work, to keep them to an orderly and regulated mode of life, and to train them or make them willing to observe the duty of maintaining the members of their families—appears to have been achieved." Whether this object has been attained or not is judged by the life and habits of the detainee on discharge. ”

“ As I have already suggested, it is the final stage in the criminal career 223 which began in some minor offence, punished by a few days’ detention in the boys’ prison, and here ends at the scaffold upon the Place de la Roquette. It is more by administrative design than definite design that these two extremes, the criminal cradle and the place of final doom, are thus brought into close juxtaposition. ”

“ The British, with whom due process is a habit, if not a written constitutional dictum, permit a court in a limited class of cases to pass a 'sentence of preventive detention' if satisfied that it is expedient for the protection of the public. ”

“ Where a person is convicted on indictment of an offence for which he is liable to be sentenced to penal servitude or imprisonment, and it appears to the court—
(a) that the person is not less than sixteen nor more than twenty-one years of age; and
(b) that, by reason of his criminal habits or tendencies, or association with persons of bad character, it is expedient that he should be subject to detention for such term and under such instruction and discipline as appears most conducive to his reformation and the repression of crime ”

“ Tuesday, Feb. 10.—This morning two ladies passing the building bowed to prisoners at our window. A guard was sent out and brought them in. They were released after fifteen or twenty minutes’ detention, Brave soldiers! How fortunate the weather continues cool so that the ladies cannot bare arms, as it might interfere with the prison arrangements, making it necessary to double the guard in order to insure the safe keeping of the prisoners and protect our timorous guards. ”

“ Persons arrested must be brought before a judge at the latest on the day after their apprehension. If pretrial confinement is ordered by the judge, he must make a periodic review as to whether continued detention is justified. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Every person sentenced to detention in a Borstal institution shall, on the expiration of the term of his sentence, remain for a further period of six months under the supervision of the Prison Commissioners. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The accused man will have an unqualified right of appeal. After serving his term of penal servitude he will be committed to a place of detention which will be a prison specially adapted for the purposes of the Act. ”

“ No prisoner shall be punished unless he has been informed of the offense alleged
against him and is given a proper opportunity to present his defense. The
competent authority shall conduct a thorough examination of the case. ”

“ To the prisoner he said: “You may be seated, sir. I want to talk to you.”
Then to the guard: “I will excuse you, guard. I wish to question the prisoner alone.”
Turning to the prisoner: “Now, sir, I should like to hear something about yourself. Why were you sentenced, and have you registered under your real name?”
“I have, sir. I am not a criminal. I have been sentenced because of strong circumstantial evidence. I am innocent. I did not commit the crime for which I am here.”
“Well, my opinion of you is good. I do not believe that you are a murderer—at least, I hope not. ”

“ Here are confined men charged with every offense, from rioting to murder. Oftentimes these extremes are found together in the interior court of the prison, where the felon, with his hands steeped in innocent blood, is entertaining a crowd of novices in crime with the details of his adventures, and of his many hair-breadth escapes from the cruel officers of the law. He is as eloquent in giving lessons to novices as his compeers in our own prisons, and he carefully instructs his hopeful pupils in the best ways of avenging their wrongs upon society. ”

“ The most numerous class of these institutions consists of prisons, in which to confine men for terms specified by the trial courts as penalties for their offenses. The laws, under which offenders are sentenced to these prisons, aim at classifying crimes according to the degree of guilt they imply, and assigning to each of them the penalty which it deserves. Thus, to these prisons are sent men sentenced to confinement for two, five, ten, fourteen, or thirty years, or for life, according to the name which the law attaches to the crime proved upon them ”