Preventive detention

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ At the same time, it is necessary to initiate the reform of the prison system, as well as the implementation of modern systems in order to prevent the imprisonment of persons for minor offenses or minor crimes, and to prevent the unnecessary prolongation of preventive detention. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When A person is detained in pursuance of a detention order, the authority making the order shall, as soon as may be, communicate to him the grounds on which the order has been made, and shall afford him the earliest opportunity of making a representation against the order, in a case where such order has been made by the Central Government, to that Government, and in a case where it has been made by a State Government or an officer subordinate thereto, to the State Government. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Local jails are recruiting stations for our larger State correctional institutions. We should make greater progress in reformation if we did not first pollute the stream we are going to treat.
The outlook is not bright, but it is by no means hopeless. The evils which exist are the natural result of the system we adopted. Let us change the system. Let us begin at the bottom and study all the steps in the treatment of the offender—his apprehension, detention, trial, conviction, probation, confinement, treatment, employment, conditional release, final discharge. Let us set as our goal ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The first is a new method for educating and reforming young offenders, already on the frontiers of habitual crime, no longer children, but at an age still susceptible of permanent improvement; the second is the legal acceptance of the principle of indefinite detention, the willingness to inflict an indeterminate sentence on those who have already forfeited the right to be at large. Both these measures originated in the United States. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If, holding this lamp, we turn to our prison, we see at once how incompatible with such an attitude is the system of determining beforehand the exact period of the delinquent’s detention. Many a man imprisoned for life, to his own misery, the ruin of his family, and the cost of the State, might with absolute safety to the community be liberated to-day; it is unnecessary to speak further of the thousands for whom society, inside or outside prison, has done nothing, and whom it liberates, with full knowledge that they proceed at once to prey upon itself. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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”. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Each case should be examined by a psychiatrist as well as by the Prison Medical Officer, and the length of the period of detention should be determined by the Prisons Board after looking into the nature of the offence and considering the report of the psychologist and evidence as to the conduct of the prisoner while under detention. In cases of the worst type the indeterminate sentence would doubtless resolve itself into detention for life.
At all costs the women and children of the community must be protected against this class of offender. ”

“ Officers of the institutions shall not, in their relations with the prisoners, use force
except in self-defense or in cases of attempted escape, or active or passive
physical resistance to an order based on law or regulations. Officers who have
recourse to force must use no more than is strictly necessary and must report the
incident immediately to the prison master of the institution. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A prison ought merely to be a place of detention in which offenders are placed till some proper provision is made for their supervision and means of livelihood in the community.... The prison in which they would be placed would not be a reformatory institution where all sorts of futile experiments would be made, but simply a place of detention in which they would be required each to attend on himself until he had made up his mind to accept the greater degree of liberty implied in life outside. ”

“ The nation’s 34 provincial prisons and 203 detention centers are appalling. Prisoners are consistently subject to torture and police frequently rape female and male detainees. Five million children live in desperate poverty. ”

“ All money, valuables, clothing and other effects belonging to a prisoner which
under the regulations of the institution he is not allowed to retain shall on his
admission to the institution be placed in safe custody. An inventory thereof shall
be signed by the prisoner. Steps shall be taken to keep them in good condition. ”

“ We hazard nothing in saying that the influence which the punishment of crime exerts, in deterring the criminally disposed from committing it, is scarcely worth a padlock. A single escape of a prisoner from gaol, or from the custody of an officer, weakens whatever deterring influence is exerted over hundreds of minds ”

“ They are conducted on prison lines only so far as is necessary to ensure safe custody and control, and on strictly asylum principles in all matters referring to the treatment of inmates. The application of all restraint and punishment is controlled by the medical aspect of the question. The majority of inmates are persons who, through a long life of debauch, immorality, violence, and crime, have given [Pg 157] constant trouble to the Police in the streets and to Prison Authorities during innumerable penal sentences. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Would it not be better to sentence every offender under an indeterminate sentence law, so that when the experts who have him in charge are convinced that he is thoroughly reformed, that on their recommendation and with the pardon board’s approval, he could be paroled and turned over to a prisoners’ aid society? This society should be a branch of the state convict department and it should retain control of paroled prisoners and sustain them until they could be placed at work. ”

“ 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. ”