Person:

Stone, Christopher

Many governments, civil society organizations, and international development agencies today seek to limit the use of pretrial detention in criminal justice. Motivations vary. Some believe that pretrial detention is ordered indiscriminately and employed for unreasonably long periods; others are concerned with the conditions of confinement and the burdens detention places on families; still others worry about the criminogenic effects of pretrial incarceration. But whatever the motive to limit the use of pretrial detention, it is difficult to imagine the effort succeeding without a good indicator of the extent of its use. Such an indicator has proven surprisingly elusive in countries at every income level. Indeed, it is possible that the effort to reduce pretrial detention in developing countries may actually be hindered by the indicator most commonly used there: the proportion of prison inmates on any given day that is not sentenced. This paper describes some of the flaws with this and other indicators, and shows how domestic governments and their development partners can use a basic and better indicator—the median duration of detention—as a catalyst for change. This paper demonstrates a simple and inexpensive way of developing this indicator – by obtaining administrative data already collected in most prisons and jails about the people who leave detention each month. Everywhere in the world, some number of detainees "exit" each month: some released to continue awaiting trial at liberty, others released at the end of their cases without a prison sentence, and still others whose pretrial detention has been changed to a sentence of incarceration following a criminal conviction. Virtually every prison and jail in the world records the dates of these "exits" whether they are actual releases or merely the reclassification of a pretrial detainee as a sentenced prisoner. Only these administrative data can generate an accurate measure of the duration of detention.

This paper explores the possibility that governance indicators can be harmonized across three levels (within an individual ministry or government department, across government as a whole, and at the level of global governance) and that doing so will produce effective governance. Specifically, I argue that those operating on the global level -- particularly in the domain of safety, justice, and the rule of law -- might design their indicators from the bottom up, supporting local ambitions and building on the legitimate sources of authority close to the operations they seek to influence, rather than starting with ambitions and power at a global level.

In the months before the January earthquake, Haiti and its criminal justice institutions were the subject of an unprecedented effort by two UN agencies to measure the state of the Rule of Law. Drawing on the results of that pre-quake assessment as well as on post-quake assessments of the justice sector, this paper raises four questions that should guide recovery and further development of the police, courts, and prisons in Haiti—questions that focus attention on the meaning of justice sector reform for the people of Haiti, especially the poor. (1) What is the goal of justice sector reform in Haiti and how would we know if we are achieving it? (2) From whose perspective will specific reforms to the police, courts, and prisons be prioritized? (3) How is the police enforcement mission changing in Haiti in the post-quake period, and what are the implications for the courts and prisons? (4) Where are the immediate opportunities for signal reforms that could be achieved quickly and demonstrate to a wide audience the direction in which longer term reforms are heading? The paper frames alternative answers to each of these questions and, in the process, suggests how the Rule of Law Indicators piloted just before the earthquake could be used to assess Haiti’s criminal justice system in the years ahead.