Set a limit on how long people can be held before trial, and release them automatically when time runs out
In short
- The law sets a maximum number of days that a person can be held before trial, based on how serious the charge is.
- When the limit is reached, the facility lets the person go, even if the court does nothing.
- To keep holding someone before then, prosecutors must give their reasons in front of the person and their lawyer.
- Courts and prosecutors, not the people who were arrested, pay the price when a trial is delayed.
If this comes true
A nineteen-year-old suspected of stealing from a store walks out of the detention center gate on the morning of the limit day. For the months before trial, they work in their mother's diner and prepare with their lawyer to show they are innocent.
Perhaps
A person charged with a serious crime might return to town when time runs out, and a neighbor who was supposed to testify might start to hesitate to go to court.
Water so far 💧 0
The proposal in detail
This covers everyone who has lost their freedom before it has been decided whether they are guilty or not. That includes police holding cells, detention centers, juvenile facilities, and immigration detention centers. The system has two clocks. The first is a renewal clock: a detention order expires automatically after a set period. To continue it, a judge must hold a hearing with the person and their lawyer present, and prosecutors must show with specific facts that the person might flee or might pressure witnesses. The reasons are recorded in writing. The second is a limit clock: the law sets a total limit based on how heavy a sentence the charged crime could bring. When the limit is reached, the head of the facility has a duty to release the person. The facility's record system counts the days automatically, and holding someone past the limit counts as unlawful confinement, for which the head of the facility and the prosecutor in charge can be held responsible. As an exception, time when the person ran away or deliberately dragged out the proceedings is not counted, but only if a judge finds this and records it in writing. For serious crimes that harmed a person's life or body, release is not unconditional: conditions such as reporting where they live, wearing a device that shows their location, and a ban on approaching the victim are attached. When a case is extremely complex, a higher court may allow an extension just once, and must make its reasons public. Release does not end the charges, and the trial continues. The days spent in detention are subtracted from the sentence, and people found not guilty receive compensation based on the number of days held.
BenefitsMove the cost of delay from the people locked up to the system
The core of this proposal is a change in the default: if nothing is done, the person is released. Today, keeping someone locked up takes no effort, and letting them out takes effort. Reversing this means the side that wants to continue detention must give its reasons each time, and takes on the responsibility to move the trial forward within the time limit. Courts and prosecutors would put their limited staff first on cases with detained people, so fewer cases would sit forgotten on a shelf. The reversal in which innocent people, or people charged with minor crimes, lose more time in detention than any sentence would give them would also stop. People who are released can face trial while keeping their jobs and families, so there would be fewer confessions made just to get out and fewer unwilling admissions of guilt, and the outcomes of trials themselves would be more reliable. If crowding in facilities eases, illness and violence would also decrease. Because a release at the deadline comes from the rules of the system, individual judges also escape the situation in which they alone are blamed. People who cannot hire a lawyer are also protected by the system that counts the days, so the length of someone's freedom would depend less on money or knowledge.
DrawbacksA person who may be dangerous returns to town before trial
The limit is set by the number of days, not by whether the person is truly dangerous. So a person charged with a violent crime, who might really hurt someone again, is also released when time runs out. Even with conditions, some people will run away, threaten witnesses, or approach victims. For victims and their families, having a person who may be the offender return to the neighborhood can feel like being betrayed by the system. If frightened witnesses stay silent, people who should be convicted cannot be convicted. Prosecutors pressed by deadlines might file charges before an investigation is solid, or give up on cases with weak evidence, and the truth might never come out. There is also a risk of a loophole, in which people are charged with a heavier crime than the real one in order to get a longer limit. If courts give priority to cases with detained people, other criminal cases and trials over family or debt disputes would be pushed back. Devices that show location, and the staff needed to watch over released people, would also bring new costs. A society that chooses this proposal accepts putting some people at risk in exchange for the freedom of many innocent people.
Learn the background
In many countries around the world, a large share of the people in prisons and detention centers have not yet been found guilty. They are locked up for months, sometimes years, before a trial begins, and during that time they lose their jobs, are separated from their families, and can no longer pay for their children's school costs. Poor people who cannot pay bail and people who cannot hire a lawyer stay the longest. Long detention also pressures people to admit to crimes they did not commit, just to get out quickly. Many countries have laws that set limits on detention. Even so, the problem is not solved, because the rules are not built to work that way. Extensions are repeated as routine paperwork, and the heavy job of asking for release falls on the detained person, who often knows little about the law. Even when trials are delayed because courts and prosecutors are busy, the only ones who pay the price are the people locked up, and those who caused the delay lose nothing. Also, if a person who was released commits a crime, the judge who decided is blamed, but no one is blamed for locking up an innocent person for a long time. As long as this imbalance of blame remains, decisions in doubtful cases will keep leaning toward keeping people locked up.
Choose them ready to accept their drawbacks too (up to 5)
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This proposal was written in Japanese by AI (claude-opus-5-5, policy version 2026-10-28a) and translated by AI (claude-sonnet-5-5). Nobody has checked the facts. Read the original (日本語) How the AI writes