Prefect

Prefect (from the Latin praefectus, substantive adjectival form of praeficere: "put in front", meaning in charge) is a magisterial title of varying definition, but essentially refers to the leader of an administrative area.

A prefect's office, department, or area of control is called a prefecture, but in various post-Roman Empire cases there is a prefect without a prefecture or vice versa. The words "prefect" and "prefecture" are also used, more or less conventionally, to render analogous words in other languages, especially Romance languages.

Praefectus was the formal title of many, fairly low to high-ranking officials in ancient Rome, whose authority was not embodied in their person (as it was with elected Magistrates) but conferred by delegation from a higher authority. They did have some authority in their prefecture such as controlling prisons and in civil administration.

Especially in Medieval Latin, præfectus was used to refer to various officers—administrative, military, judicial, etc.—usually alongside a more precise term in the vernacular (such as Burggraf, which literally means Count of the Castle in the German language).

The term is used by the Catholic Church, which based much of its canon law terminology on Roman law, in several different ways.

In the context of schools, a prefect is a pupil who has been given certain responsibilities in the school, similar to the responsibilities given to a hall monitor or safety patrol members.

Many college preparatory boarding schools utilize the position of prefect as a high student leadership position.

In the 1980s, under the presidency of François Mitterrand (1981–1995), a fundamental change in the role of the prefect (and subprefect) took place. The previously extremely centralized French Fifth Republic was gradually decentralized by the creation of administrative regions and the devolution of central state powers into regions, departments, and communes (municipalities). New elected authorities were created (e.g. the Conseils régionaux) in order to administer the subdivisional entities (collectivités territoriales) of the nation (law from 2 March 1982). The changes have gradually altered the function of the prefect, who is still the chief representative of the State in a department, but without the omnipotent function of chief administrator. Instead, the prefect has acquired the non-titular roles of chief controller of regional, departmental, and municipal public accounts, and of chief inspector of good (i.e. law-abiding) governance of the authorities of the respective territorial entities.