Pre-trial detention and bail

Session Submission Type: Pre-arranged Panel

Abstract

This panel examines the use of pre-trial detention (PTD) and bail in Europe and America. Despite the presumption of innocence and international agreement that PTD should be the last resort, over three million people are in PTD across the World. This population is often kept in poor conditions which are worse than their convicted counterparts. There is also ample evidence that certain sections of society are overrepresented in PTD including the poor, minority groups and foreign nationals.
The panel brings together five papers from the forthcoming Research Handbook on PTD and Bail (Edward Elgar) to examine the PTD ‘problem’ and/or responses to it. Two papers provide regional European perspectives on the use of PTD. High rates of PTD are highlighted in Nordic countries known for their penal exceptionalism. By contrast, Eastern European countries, usually identified as high users of imprisonment, have relatively low PTD use. Papers from England and Wales and the United States focus on ‘alternatives’ to PTD, specifically electronic monitoring and the reform of cash bail. The panel provides an opportunity to draw attention to the ways in which PTD and its alternatives are used in legal systems with different traditions, but which share the problem of overuse of PTD. The final paper draws attention to questions about the purpose of PTD.

Subtopic

• Topic 5: Social Control and Criminal Justice / Courts and Sentencing and Penal Decision Making (Sentencing and Penal Decisionmaking WG)

Chair

• Anthea Hucklesby, University of Birmingham

Individual Presentations

• Pre-trial detention trends in post-communist states of Central and Eastern Europe – influential factors and challenges - Anna Grochowska-Wasilewska, University of Warsaw

• Pre-trial detention in Scandinavia: practice, policy and politics - Emeli Lönnqvist, Department of Criminology, Stockholm University

• Bail and Bail Reform in the United States - Christine Scott-Hayward, California State University Long Beach

• Electronic monitoring in the pre-trial phase in England and Wales: challenges for human rights - Anthea Hucklesby, University of Birmingham

• The presumption of innocence – why it matters for pre-trial detention - Christine Viktoria Morgenstern, Ruhr-Universität Bochum