New Book Examines Human Costs of Pretrial Detention in Mexico

NEW YORK—In Mexico today, more than 90,000 people languish in pretrial detention. They account for over 42 percent of Mexico's prison population, and in a country plagued by serious crime they represent a troubling misuse of resources: most pretrial detainees are accused of minor crimes and could be provisionally released without risk to the community.

Socrates was one such detainee. At age 18 he was arrested for being "suspiciously" present in a dark alley. The next day he was found dead in his cell; a subsequent autopsy revealed that he was beaten to death.

A new book published in Mexico this month explores the human toll of pretrial detention through the stories of Socrates and people like him who needlessly suffer in jail—sometimes for years—while awaiting trial.

Prisión sin Condena (Prison without Conviction), published by Random House Mondadori, Mexico, highlights the costs to individuals and society of over-reliance on pretrial detention. The book puts a human face on a system that presumes the arrested are guilty, and offers compelling evidence of the need for alternatives to pretrial detention that are fair, protect due process, and foster community safety. Among the stories told in the book are those of:

• Lía, falsely accused of smuggling drugs, who spent nearly four years in prison, and whose father attempted suicide and mother suffered a heart attack due to stress related to her imprisonment.
• Alejandro, who was tortured with electrical shocks and simulated drowning and held for eight years over the executions of four political activists before finally being freed through the intervention of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission.
• Felipe, a teen who died in an inmate attack while confined in an adult prison on a false charge of robbery.

The Justice Initiative and its Mexican partner, Institución Renace, A.B.P., are participating in a roundtable discussion on pretrial detention on October 21, 2008, to mark the book's publication. Also participating will be noted academic Miguel Sarre, journalist Marco Lara Klahr, and David Argueta, an exonerated former pretrial detainee whose story is told in the book.

The excessive use of pretrial detention represents a violation of human rights guaranteed in the Mexican Constitution and international instruments ratified by Mexico. Furthermore, excessive use of pretrial detention inefficiently expends criminal justice resources which could more effectively prevent crime, protect victims, and enable the re-entry of former offenders into the community. To examine the global costs of this practice, as well as efforts to reduce it, the Justice Initiative published Justice Initiatives: Pretrial Detention, in April 2007.