People taken in preventive detention without charge in Mexico 2020, by gender

Preventive detention is a measure that leads to the imprisonment of people automatically while they are still being investigated. In 2020, Mexico had a higher share of women as pre-trial detainees than men. Approximately 90.7 percent of imprisoned women were in jail without charges. One of the various reasons behind the high share of prisoners awaiting sentence is the large number of simultaneous cases that pulic defenders have to attend to. In 2020, depending on the Mexican state in which someone is being prosecuted, a public defender can have up to an average of 336.9 simultaneous cases to defend.