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Pretrial Detention

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Pretrial Dention When a crime is allegedly committed an individual can be taken into custody, after the arraignment which is the formal reading of a criminal complaint in the presence of the defandant to inform the defendant of the charges against him or her. In response to arraignment, the accused criminal is then excepted to enter a plea. Then the accused may not be able to post bail/bond or even be denied realase. This indvidual must stay in jail until his court hearing, the time the person waits in jail is called pretrial detention. Today throughout the world pretrial detention has caused many issues in which this paper will look further into. Some of the issues that will be explored in this paper are how pretrial detention is …show more content…

Out of 38,000 cases last year only 376 people got released on bond. Many offenders even the ones that just get convicted of misdemeanors can not afford to post bond which means they end up in pretrial detention until their trial. This is another reason to why the prisons are becoming so full with allegedly convicted criminals in pretrial detention. The eighth amendment states excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted, yet what exactly is cruel or unusual punishment? Can pretrial detention be considered cruel and unusual punishment considering the alleged criminal may be innocent and spend months to years in pretrial detention for something they may have never committed. Even criminals in pretrial detention who could have convicted a minor crime may not deserve to wait in pretrial detention as long as they do. Although, the alleged criminals in pretrial detention are not being physically punished some defiantly are being mentally punished. However, the justice system does not think about how the alleged criminal feels neither does most of society to them its better to keep someone who may or may not be guilty in pretrial detention then to have them on the streets. However, to the alleged criminal especially the innocent ones this is defiantly cruel and unusual punishment why should they have to be locked up in a little room, and loose months to years on their lives because the United States

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