ABSTRACT. Blackwell and Cunningham write that pretrial incarceration is the most punitive form of procedural punishment imposed by the lower courts. Ashworth and Zedner remark that some longstanding assumptions about the role and the place of the criminal trial and, it follows, the criminal law are under challenge. Green says that it seems surprising that procedural protections are not allocated proportionally, so that, the more serious the offense charged, the more extensive the process due. Barrozo claims that one of the effects of the focus on deviation is the overlegitimation of the norm, of the mainstream of our punitive practices.