“Meaningful change to prevent the overuse of pre-trial detention demands, more than anything else, that decision-makers reckon with the costs of pre-trial detention, human and social. That demands greater recognition of the potentially devastating consequences of detention for the individual suspect (not only the risk that release could pose, like failure to appear or committing an offence); proper consideration of more proportionate alternatives to detention; effective advocacy for release by well-prepared defence lawyers (who have access to the information they need to do their jobs and who have been able to consult their clients); and more time for courts properly to reach, and to explain, the lifechanging decision to order pre-trial detention.” – Jago Russell, Fair Trials’ Chief Executive