In Europe 22% of the inmates held in European penal institutions are not serving a final sentence. Following the terminology of the Council of Europe, this means that 22% of the inmates are detainees placed in pre-trial detention.

It should be noted that in Europe an important part of the population in pre-trial detention are so-called ‘foreign nationals’. Especially in the European Union countries the percentage of foreign nationals in remand placed in pre-trial detention is relatively high (approximately almost 60%).

These data clearly show the overuse of pre-trial detention and emphasize the importance to promote the use of alternative measures to pre-trial detention in Europe, not only because prison overcrowding is still a big problem in many countries. Reducing the proportion of pre-trial detention is largely a matter of improving the functioning of the criminal justice process.

In the webinar CEP addressed the different mechanisms that influence the high number of detainees placed in pre-trial detention and focused on alternative measures available today to reduce the number of detainees placed in pre-trial detention, like the European Supervision Order and the Framework Decision 2009/829/JHA (FD 829).

Three excellent presentation were delivered by Ms. Ilze Tralmaka (Fair Trials), Ms. Tanja Dejanova (Penal Reform International) and Professor Ioan Durnescu (University of Bucharest, Romania) – these can be downloaded below.

• Presentation Fair Trials by Ms. Ilze Tralmaka
• Presentation Penal Reform International by Ms. Tanja Dejanova
• Presentation professor Ioan Durnescu on the Pre-triad project