For many people, seeing someone in prison leads to an automatic conclusion: that person was convicted. But the reality is more complex. Not everyone in prison has been convicted: there is pre-trial detention, which allows someone who has not yet been tried to be deprived of liberty, who is still protected by the presumption of innocence and whose guilt no court has declared. The difference from a final conviction is not only theoretical: it is legal, practical, and human.

Pre-trial detention is a personal precautionary measure that the investigating judge can order during the proceedings, before the trial and the judgment. Its nature is that of a measure to secure the proceedings, not that of a sanction. It does not presuppose guilt: someone in pre-trial detention remains innocent for all legal purposes, has no criminal record for those facts, and retains their rights, except those incompatible with the deprivation of liberty. It is ordered for limited purposes, such as preventing flight, the destruction of evidence, reoffending, or danger to the victim, and must cease when those aims are no longer at risk.

A final conviction is something radically different: it is the judgment that, after the oral trial with all guarantees, declares a person guilty and imposes a penalty. It becomes final when it can no longer be appealed. It is the result of a complete process in which the defendant has been able to defend themselves fully. Once final, the convicted person loses their status as innocent with respect to that offence.

The fundamental differences are several. The legal basis: pre-trial detention rests on rational evidence of criminal conduct, which may turn out to be wrong; conviction requires that guilt has been established beyond all reasonable doubt. The presumption of innocence: pre-trial detention is compatible with it; a final conviction destroys it with respect to the specific offence. Duration: pre-trial detention is temporary and uncertain, with maximum terms; conviction sets a precise and determined penalty.

To this are added two further differences. The prison regime: the pre-trial detainee is not subject to the treatment plan or the compulsory work of the convicted person. And criminal record: pre-trial detention does not generate one, whereas a final conviction is recorded in the Central Register of Convicted Persons.

There is an important connection between the two figures: crediting. Time spent in pre-trial detention is automatically deducted from the prison sentence imposed. Someone who has been two years in pre-trial detention and is sentenced to four will only serve two years more; if the sentence is equal to or less than the time served, they will be released when the judgment becomes final. A particularly dramatic scenario is that of the suspect who spends time in pre-trial detention and is then acquitted: they were deprived of liberty while innocent, and the legal system recognises their right to compensation from the State, an imperfect but necessary guarantee.

Finally, society and the media should respect this difference: confusing pre-trial detention with a conviction stigmatises people who are still innocent and erodes the presumption of innocence, which is a right not only before the courts, but also before society.