ABSTRACT
Currently, over three million people worldwide are remanded in prison facilities while awaiting trial. Despite the legal presumption of innocence, the duration of their detention can range from days to years. This prolonged detention subjects them to severe hardships, a situation that is particularly intensified by the challenging prison conditions found throughout most of sub-Saharan Africa. There is a need to make them free and consider very few cases whereby there are severe grounds for preventive detention to be considered as the last resort. This is possible when alternative ways are applied instead of applying this serious approach that leads to severe repercussions. This chapter examines the effective mechanisms used as alternatives to pre-trial detention in sub-Saharan Africa. The chapter focuses on the practice in Rwanda, which went through a severe situation of the genocide against the Tutsi. Rwanda has been identified as a country with success stories in dealing with pre-trial detention in the aftermath of the genocide against the Tutsi that claimed over a million people, with more than a million criminal suspects in this regard. This success and lessons learnt can offer a valuable model for other countries as they manage the challenges of pre-trial detention. The chapter also discusses Rwanda’s management of pre-trial detention for ordinary crimes, extending the analysis beyond the specific context of genocide.
