Violent Offenders in the Community | European Journal

Violent offenders and persons convicted of sex crimes must be released after serving their sentences. The Swiss have instituted a model system for protecting the community.Germany's system of preventive detention has been used to keep violent criminals in prison even after their sentence is over. Offenders have often been sentenced to indefinite periods of preventive detention. But in 2009 the European Court of Human Rights ruled that this practice is a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights. Switzerland, which has also utilized preventive detention of high-risk offenders, has now turned to emphasizing prevention. New projects aim to provide supervision and support even to first-time offenders.