A talisman for criminal justice? approaches and interpretations on the use of preventive detention

Abstract

With this work we try to describe and analyze the problem of preventive detention, understanding that the latter is not only a precautionary measure, but a complex judicial practice that requires taking into account different perspectives. In the first place, we will allude to legal dogmatics, mainly because it is the approach that has been studying this phenomenon for the longest time. Then, we will present the view that various NGO’s offer in this regard, which suggest that it is a tool used indiscriminately. The third perspective comes from the social sciences and seeks to explain the increase in preventive detention in particular, together with the increase in the rate of imprisonment in general, as a result of both historical and conjunctural processes. Towards the end, we will offer our position on the matter, defining preventive detention by what it produces, by the interactions that it is capable of articulating between judicial and extrajudicial actors.