Wrongful arrest is detaining someone without sufficient evidence. Different countries have varying legal requirements for declaring wrongful arrest. Business owners and citizens can also make arrests, but laws vary by country and state.
Wrongful arrest is the act of detaining someone for a crime without sufficient evidence that the person actually committed the crime. While this does not necessarily cover all situations where a person is held and subsequently found innocent, as there may be reasonable suspicion and evidence to detain a person who is subsequently released, it can often be used when someone is being held without probable cause. The term is also often applied to shopkeepers or store managers who seek to detain a person for shoplifting without actually witnessing any crime.
In different countries and regions within a country, there may be different requirements for someone to legally declare that they have been the victim of a wrongful arrest. Some countries may not even have provisions for wrongful arrest situations, and in dictatorial governments or police states, arrest without particularly strong evidence or support may be perfectly legal. Most countries that recognize the Universal Declaration of Human Rights established by the United Nations, however, recognize the right of a person not to be unreasonably detained.
Outside the capabilities of law enforcement, however, wrongful arrest situations typically arise in cases where business owners detain someone suspected of committing a crime against the business or in citizen arrest situations. Not all countries allow arrests of citizens, and those that do may have certain rules about how it can be carried out. In both France and Germany, for example, the arrest of a citizen can only be made against a person caught in the act of committing a crime and the person can only be detained for a reasonable time with the intention of immediately handing him over to the police. France, however, has some provisions and a person can be placed under citizen’s arrest only for an offense punishable by imprisonment, while Germany has no such limitation.
In the United States, individual states may have different statutes regarding wrongful arrest cases and the ability for individuals to make an arrest of a citizen or for shopkeepers to detain a person suspected of shoplifting. Most laws only allow a business owner or manager to detain someone who is directly seen by the owner in the act of attempting to steal from the business. Some states have also established laws that allow a business owner to briefly detain someone they reasonably believe has stolen from the business, but only in an attempt to recover the stolen goods or while waiting for the police to arrive.
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