This book analyses and reconstructs the European Convention on Human Rights standard of application and execution of preventive deprivation of liberty. Acts of international law were drafted at a time when guarantees for the protection of the personal liberty of individuals were primarily associated with custodial sentences. However, the essence, nature, and purpose of preventive deprivation of liberty, which are fundamentally different from those of imprisonment, also require a different approach to the assessment of the minimum standard and guarantees for the protection of personal liberty and other rights and freedoms. This work determines the minimum guarantees for the protection of liberty and other rights and freedoms of a person in determining the legal basis and procedure for the application and execution of this measure. It presents guidelines on how the substantive prerequisites for preventive deprivation of liberty and the procedure for its application should be constructed in order to meet the European Convention on Human Rights standards. It also provides guidance on how the conditions and rules for preventive deprivation of liberty should be organised in order to protect individuals from inhuman or degrading treatment, or disproportionate restriction of their rights or freedoms. Finally, this work also discusses how the lawfulness of the imposition or continuation of a measure of preventive deprivation of liberty should be reviewed. This book will be of interest to academics, researchers, and policy‐makers working in the areas of Constitutional, Criminal, Medical, and Human Rights Law.

This book arises from a three-year study of Preventive Justice directed by Professor Andrew Ashworth and Professor Lucia Zedner at the University of Oxford. The study seeks to develop an account of the principles and values that should guide and limit the state's use of preventive techniques that involve coercion against the individual. States today are increasingly using criminal law or criminal law-like tools to try to prevent or reduce the risk of anticipated future harm. Such measures include criminalizing conduct at an early stage in order to allow authorities to intervene; incapacitating suspected future wrongdoers; and imposing extended sentences or indefinate on past wrongdoers on the basis of their predicted future conduct - all in the name of public protection and security. The chief justification for the state's use of coercion is protecting the public from harm. Although the rationales and justifications of state punishment have been explored extensively, the scope, limits and principles of preventive justice have attracted little doctrinal or conceptual analysis. This book re-assesses the foundations for the range of coercive measures that states now take in the name of prevention and public protection, focussing particularly on coercive measures involving deprivation of liberty. It examines whether these measures are justified, whether they distort the proper boundaries between criminal and civil law, or whether they signal a larger change in the architecture of security. In so doing, it sets out to establish a framework for what we call 'Preventive Justice'.

This comprehensive examination of the laws governing the punishment, detention, and protection of people with mental disabilities provides innovative solutions to problems associated with criminal responsibility, protection of society from "dangerous" individuals, and the state's authority to act paternalistically.

Preventative Justice looks at the use of coercive preventive measures by the state, both within and beyond criminal law. Examining preventive laws, measures, and institutions in and outside the criminal law, it explores the justifications given for using coercion to protect the public from harm.

As policy-makers look first (and easily) for existing policy solutions which could be adapted from elsewhere, policy transfer becomes increasingly central to policy development. This book explores whether policy transfer in 'everyday' policy-making may be unintentionally creating a system of preventive justice.

3. The 'Victim' requirement

In the past three decades, international and regional human rights bodies have developed an ever-lengthening list of measures that states are required to adopt in order to prevent torture. But do any of these mechanisms actually work? This study is the first systematic analysis of the effectiveness of torture prevention. Primary research was conducted in 16 countries, looking at their experience of torture and prevention mechanisms over a 30-year period. Data was analysed using a combination of quantitative and qualitative techniques. Prevention measures do work, although some are much more effective than others. Most important of all are the safeguards that should be applied in the first hours and days after a person is taken into custody. Notification of family and access to an independent lawyer and doctor have a significant impact in reducing torture. The investigation and prosecution of torturers and the creation of independent monitoring bodies are also important in reducing torture. An important caveat to the conclusion that prevention works is that is actual practice in police stations and detention centres that matters - not treaties ratified or laws on the statute book.