Mexico City, November 11, 2004—The number of people imprisoned before trial in Mexico has doubled in ten years without any discernable impact on insecurity or crime rates, according to a new publication released today.
The paper, "Myths of Pretrial Detention in Mexico," is the first in a series challenging popular perceptions about crime and imprisonment to be published by the Open Society Justice Initiative. The series forms part of a multi-pronged effort to highlight the excessive use of pretrial detention, and improve criminal justice in Mexico.
The study shows that the number of people who endure pretrial detention in Mexico has doubled over the last ten years, but crime rates have not decreased and people do not feel safer. Pretrial detention is applied indiscriminately, even for petty crimes. In 2002 alone, some 19,000 people were imprisoned awaiting trials for minor offenses in Mexico. Pretrial detention is not an effective way of guaranteeing reparations for victims.
Developed in Mexico and incorporating years of research, the monograph presents the preliminary results of a broader cost-benefit analysis of Mexican pretrial detention practices. That larger analysis examines several thousand pretrial detainees, detailing their time spent in prison, the types of crime involved, and the costs to the Mexican Public Security System.