The use of coercive measures by the state in the name of crime prevention and public protection is the focus of a public talk at the University of New South Wales next week.

Detaining the Dangerous – A comparative jurisprudence of preventive detention, is the first talk in the new Justice Talks lecture series. The talks will examine whether states should have the right to detain individuals on the suspicion they are about to break the law, and under what circumstances authorities should be allowed to hold people in custody after they have served their sentence.

Delivered by Professor of Criminal Justice Lucia Zedner, the lecture analyses the contradiction between the right to be free, and the extensive powers given to states to detain those deemed dangerous ahead of proven wrongdoing or beyond the period of proportionate punishment.

Professor Zedner will ask on what grounds preventative detention can be justly imposed, under what conditions and to what ends? She will also examine what limits should be placed on the laws and what protections should be afforded to those detained.

Justice Talks is an initiative of the UNSW Faculty of Law.

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