In typical criminal law, time served is an informal term that describes the duration of

pretrial detention Pre-trial detention, also known as jail, preventive detention, provisional detention, or remand, is the process of detaining a person until their trial after they have been arrested and criminal charge, charged with an offence. A person who ...

(remand), the time period between when a

defendant In court proceedings, a defendant is a person or object who is the party either accused of committing a crime in criminal prosecution or against whom some type of civil relief is being sought in a civil case. Terminology varies from one juris ...

arrest An arrest is the act of apprehending and taking a person into custody (legal protection or control), usually because the person has been suspected of or observed committing a crime. After being taken into custody, the person can be question ...

ed and when they are convicted. Time served does not include time served on

bail Bail is a set of pre-trial restrictions that are imposed on a suspect to ensure that they will not hamper the judicial process. Court bail may be offered to secure the conditional release of a defendant with the promise to appear in court when ...

but only during incarceration and can range from days to, in rare cases, years. A sentence of time served means that the defendant has been sentenced to confinement, albeit retroactively fulfilled by the pretrial detention; therefore, the defendant goes free. A sentence of time served may result from

plea bargain A plea bargain, also known as a plea agreement or plea deal, is a legal arrangement in criminal law where the defendant agrees to plead guilty or no contest to a charge in exchange for concessions from the prosecutor. These concessions can include a ...

s in which in exchange for only receiving a sentence that involves no additional period of incarceration, a defendant accepts a guilty plea. Additional terms of sentence that may accompany a sentence of served also include a

probation Probation in criminal law is a period of supervision over an offence (law), offender, ordered by the court often in lieu of incarceration. In some jurisdictions, the term ''probation'' applies only to community sentences (alternatives to incar ...

, a

fine Fine may refer to: Characters * Fran Fine, the title character of ''The Nanny'' * Sylvia Fine (''The Nanny''), Fran's mother on ''The Nanny'' * Officer Fine, a character in ''Tales from the Crypt'', played by Vincent Spano Legal terms * Fine (p ...

, or unpaid community service. Statistics released in 2020 by the Victorian Sentencing Advisory Council show that 67% of people sentenced to prison in

Victoria, Australia Victoria, commonly abbreviated as Vic, is a state in southeastern Australia. It is the second-smallest state (after Tasmania), with a land area of ; the second-most-populated state (after New South Wales), with a population of over 7 million; ...

in 2017–18 spent at least one day in remand, up from 47% in 2011–12. In the same year, of the cases that Victorian courts issued imprisonment orders to, 66% exceeded time served (meaning additional time needed to be served), 29% matched time served (meaning no additional imprisonment), and 5% were less than time served (meaning the defendant was over-detained during remand). The council called the over-detention a "matter of concern", as the defendant spent longer in detention than the ultimate duration of the sentence. The council also highlighted that lower courts, such as

magistrates' court A magistrates' court is a lower court where, in several Jurisdiction (area), jurisdictions, all criminal proceedings start. Also some civil matters may be dealt with here, such as family proceedings. Courts * Magistrates' court (England and Wales) ...

, tended to give more time served sentences than higher courts.

References

{{Reflist Sentencing (law)