Preventive prison: precautionary measure or anticipated sentence? A vision from Ecuador

Abstract

Preventive detention is conceptualized as a precautionary measure, to guarantee the immediacy of the accused person at the different stages of the criminal process; It constitutes a precautionary mechanism and not social control, as has been erroneously applied in recent years in Ecuador. This article intends to analyze the scope of preventive detention, its purpose, object and normative regulation. It is necessary to take into account that the legal duty of the prosecution and the jurisdictional function, to guarantee legal certainty under special compliance with the principle of motivation; establishes the study of preventive detention in adherence to criteria of necessity, proportionality and exceptionality, as a measure of last resort. To carry out this investigation, a mixed methodology is used, through inductive - deductive methods, which show the misapplication of preventive detention in the Ecuadorian procedural system; where, in most cases, preventive detention has been established as an instrument to anticipate sentence, and not procedural precaution, distorting the true object of this extreme measure, violating the principle of innocence and the right to freedom of the prisoner accused.