Pre-trial detention

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Pre-trial detention, also known as jail, preventive detention, provisional detention, or remand, is the process of detaining a person until their trial after they have been arrested and charged with an offence. A person who is on remand is held in a prison or detention centre or held under house arrest. Varying terminology is used, but "remand" is generally used in common law jurisdictions and "preventive detention" elsewhere. However, in the United States, "remand" is rare except in official documents and "jail" is instead the main terminology.^[1] Detention before charge is commonly referred to as custody and continued detention after conviction is referred to as imprisonment.

Because imprisonment without trial is contrary to the presumption of innocence, pretrial detention in liberal democracies is usually subject to safeguards and restrictions. Typically, a suspect will be remanded only if it is likely that they could commit a serious crime, interfere with the investigation, or fail to come to the trial. In the majority of court cases, the suspect will not be in detention while awaiting trial, often with restrictions such as bail.

Research on pre-trial detention in the United States has found that pre-trial detention increases the likelihood of convictions, primarily because individuals who would otherwise be acquitted or have their charges dropped enter guilty pleas.^[2][3] A 2021 review of existing research found that "the current pretrial system [in the US] imposes substantial short- and long-term economic harms on detained defendants in terms of lost earnings and government assistance, while providing little in the way of decreased criminal activity for the public interest... the costs of cash bail and pretrial detention are disproportionately borne by Black and Hispanic individuals, giving rise to large and unfair racial differences in cash bail and detention that cannot be explained by underlying differences in pretrial misconduct risk."^[4]