- Almost one in three people in prison worldwide are unsentenced, around three million at any given time. Over a year, nearly 15 million people pass through pre-trial detention.
- Length of pre-trial detention varies widely – from an average of four months in parts of Europe to three years in Nigeria.
- Shortage of legal aid means many cannot prepare a defence. In some countries there is only one lawyer for every 50,000 people. Without support, detainees are more likely to plead guilty or face long delays to trial.
- Overcrowding and poor conditions are fuelled by high pre-trial detention rates, with serious health risks such as TB, hepatitis and HIV/AIDS. Furthermore, families pay the price when a breadwinner or caregiver is detained, often losing income, housing and family stability.
- Under international law, detention on remand is only permissible if several – cumulative – preconditions are met. Besides a reasonable suspicion of the individual having committed an offence, pre-trial detention must be reasonably necessary to prevent another offence, someone escaping from justice or interference with the course of justice. Less intrusive measures have to take precedence over detention. Pre-trial detention should only be applied for the shortest possible time and suspects are entitled to a trial ‘within a reasonable time’.
- A key set of international standards, the UN Standard Minimum Rules for Non-custodial Measures (the ‘Tokyo Rules’) also encourage criminal justice systems to provide a wide range of non-custodial measures to avoid unnecessary use of imprisonment. The UN Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders (‘the Bangkok Rules’) supplement these Rules and provide guidance on its application to women offenders.