14 presumption of innocence), clearly there is a need to contain and contract it: for it to truly be the exception rather than the rule. 62. Despite doctrinal consensus and public discourse on the indispensable reduction of preventive incarceration –which would be another expression of the “minimal” nature of the criminal system in a democratic society, now not only regarding the legal definitions and the punishments, but also regarding the instruments of the proceeding-, what has actually occurred is something different. In our countries preventive detention is liberally applied, in association with systems of prosecution that foster slowness of the proceeding. The number of unconvicted prisoners is very high, as the Latin American Institute for the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders (ILANUD), headquartered in San José, Costa Rica, as well as the Inter-American Court, have highlighted. A major part of the effort to further the reform of criminal prosecution –not, incidentally, a “blackboard reform” that functions in the classroom and the seminar, but not in the intractable reality- must have the objective of drastically reducing this army of accused –in other words, “alleged innocents”- who are often a greater number, in the prisons, than their already convicted companions in captivity. 63. Reference to this measure allows us to move ahead in the discussion of other topics that stand out in the set of facts and, of course, in the text of the judgment in the Case of Tibi. Imprisonment was, first, an instrument of retention while the proceeding took place and a judgment was issued. This is the stage reflected in the well-known characterizations of Ulpianus, the Seven-Part Code, and Beccaria himself, already mentioned above: it sought to secure, not punish, the accused, while the trial took place and the judgment was issued. Of course, this careful and compassionate intention was always contradicted by reality: imprisonment is imprisonment, despite any technical distinctions. XVI. The state of prisons 64. Despite the abundant literature regarding official deprivation of liberty, the most disquieting matters that have persisted throughout the history, a long history, of this means of prevention and punishment, are in plain view, with all their obvious problems. That literature encompasses not only the accounts of prisoners and witnesses of captivity, the studies of criminologists and specialists in penitentiary matters, and critical interpretations, but also, most exuberantly, the explicit intentions in government programs and projects, as well as abundant and detailed provisions: from constitutional laws to circular letters, edicts, and regulations that announce one of the most often proclaimed and least fulfilled endeavors: penitentiary reform. A reform that goes beyond public statements and resolutions to enter, as it must and is expected to do, the prison aisles, the corridors, the cells and the dungeons that still, despite everything, are a widespread trait of the geography of prisons. 65. Criminal and penitentiary congresses of the 19th century and the 20th century efforts, including those sponsored by the United Nations, have led to multiplied recommendations, statements, provisions, principles, and programs geared toward improving the preventive or penitentiary internment system, for minors or for adults. The First United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and Treatment of Offenders (Geneva, 1955) issued half a century ago a set of rules –which I mentioned above- that have provided very useful guidance. They brought together the two trends that were in vogue: a humanitarian one, derived from classical Law –the territory of reformers-, and the therapeutic or finalist one, originating in the best ideas on social defense, without sliding into the “dangerous dangerousness.” Afterwards, other documents have reaffirmed, in legal texts, the “standards” for management and treatment of inmates: for example, the aforementioned set of