Booleans, CONSTANTS or mapping table for 'status'-like fields?
In MySQL, you could use ENUM or SET, depending on whether the states are mutually exclusive.  That is, can it be both 'active' and 'detained'?

ENUM('active', 'detained', 'deactivated', 'suspended')


or

SET('active', 'detained', 'deactivated', 'suspended')