Preventive Detention - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition preventive-detention

Definition :

Preventive detention. By the (English) Prevention of Crime Act, 1908 (8 Edw. 7, c. 59), s. 10, as amended by the (English) Indictments Act, 1915 (5 & 6 Geo. 5, c. 90), a person after three previous convictions after attaining sixteen years of age, can with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions, R. v. Waller, (1910) 1 KB 364, in certain cases be charged, R. v. Smith, (1910) 1 KB 17, with being an habitual criminal, and if the charge is established, he can, in addition to a punishment of penal servitude, receive a further sentence of not less than five years or more than ten years, called a sentence of preventive detention. During such detention the Secretary of State has power to let the person out on licence, if he is satisfied that there is a reasonable probability that he will abstain from crime and lead a useful an industrious life, or that he is no longer capable of engaging in crime. Unless the offender admits he is an habitual criminal the jury must determine whether he is or not and for this propose can be sworn as on a trial for a misdemeanour, R. v. Turner, (1910) 1 KB 346. The jury is not bound to find that an offender is an habitual criminal because he has been previously so found, R. v. Norman, 40 TLR 693.

Preventive detention is an anticipatory measure and does not relate to an offence while the criminal proceedings are to punish a person for an offence committed by him. They are not parallel proceed-ings. In the circumstances the pendency of a criminal prosecution is no bar to an order of preventive detention, nor is an order of preventive detention a bar to prosecution, Alijan Mian v. District Magistrate, AIR 1983 SC 1130 (1132): (1983) 4 SCC 301: (1983) 3 SCR 939. [Constitution of India, Art. 22]