ABSTRACT
Preventive detention schemes for sex offenders, explored elsewhere in this book, generally come into play post-conviction (and in some jurisdictions post-sentence) and have generally been justified on the basis of the utilitarian approach that regards the protection, and subsequent happiness, of the majority as overriding any individual right to liberty (Mill 1863). A similar argument has been used to justify powers for the preventive detention of suspected terrorists and pre-charge detention for the purposes of investigation. However, such powers go even further than those enabling the preventive detention of sex offenders because no offence need ever have been committed at all for a person’s liberty to be taken away.
