In Canada we don’t have distinct federal and provincial prisons (in particular because most if not all things you’d get imprisoned for are Criminal Code offenses which are federal anyway). It appears from reading other threads here as well as stuff I’ve read and seen on TV elsewhere that in the US you get sent to a state prison for state crimes and a federal prison for federal crimes. Is that always the case? Can the feds get a state to incarcerate a person convicted of a federal crime in a state prison (or vice-versa) if that is more convenient?
What do you guys do with prisoners that require “super-max” accomodations if they are in a state that doesn’t have such accomodations (or do all states now have “super-maxes”)?
I believe you would almost always get sent to a federal prison for federal crimes and state, county, or local prisons or jails for other crimes. I have to believe that there have been exceptions however. I believe that all states have their own maximum security prisons with some being famous for their strict conditions like Angola in Louisiana. States also have medium and minimum security prisons as well.
State crimes would include the great majority of crimes that occur only within one state including murder, robbery, etc. Federal crimes would involve crimes against federal employees, federal institutions, and some crimes that cross state lines.
The federal prisons are located throughout the country. You could end up in one of those for anything from terrorism to killing a federal employee to white collar crimes involving moving money around.
The super-max prisons are all federal as far as I know. They are reserved for criminals like Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber and the Unabomber. Super-Max prisoners don’t get to socialize with other prisoners much at all and there are all kinds of anti-escape measures like wires overhead to prevent helicopter escapes. The most famous one is located in Colorado.
General rules:
Those who commit Federal crimes are incarcerated in Federal instituitions.
Those who commit State crimes are incarderated in State institutions.
Those who are convicted of “lesser” infractions are incarcerated in local (municipal) facilities.
In almost every state, the major distinction is the type of crime. In this context:
A felony is a crime with a term of imprisonment of not less than one year.
A misdemeanor is a crime with a term of imprisonoment of not more than one year (different states might state <365 days or other similar variations - remember that I am generalizing a bit here).
For people who are sentenced by the State to a term of imprisonment of less than a year, they tend to stay in a local (municipal) facility - commonly called a “jail”.
For those who are sentenced by the State to a term of imprisonment of one year or more, they tend to stay in a State facility - commonly called a “prison.”
What confuses people is the difference between the above conditions and “detainment.”
Prisoners of ALL types, who are newly admitted, awaiting adjudication, (have not yet been sentenced) have a local court appearance, etc. – will normally be detained in a local facility close to where the Court is. This “mixes” the variety of prisoners in the local facility.
Also, please remember that an individual can have multiple cases against him (or her) simultaneously… therefore having them moved between facitilites from day to day depending on legal conditions.
The OP also asks about security levels. All facilities have various levels of security, ranging from dormitory style general population “low” risk inmates… to super secure highly dangerous and high risk inmates. Classification schemes vary from one jurisdiction to another. Hence, “super max” can be at either a federal, state or local institution - please remember that since everyone comes through the local lock up first, and usually needs to be de-toxed and stabilized, it is often the “lowly” local facility that has the most high risk prisoner.
Might be OT, but both of the states I’ve lived in during my adult life had at least one county jail that housed federal inmates PRIOR to trial.
Cuyahoga County Jail (Cleveland Area, Ohio)
Orange County Jail (Not too far or too close from Raleigh, North Carolina)
I don’t really know why they used that jail instead of the one in Wake County (Raleigh)… I assume the Feds have a courthouse or two in Raleigh, but I could be wrong. Perhaps it was a pre-transfer kind of holding spot for guys waiting for the bus to somewhere else?
When you’re convicted of a crime and sentenced to prison time, you’re remanded to the prison system, Federal or state, that matches the court and crime you were convicted of.
However, each may handle inmates of the other, under contract between the systems. And Mr Slant is correct in general (though there may be Federal holding facilities in the biggest cities; I don’t know): Federal inmates awaiting trial (held in lieu of bail) are usually incarcerated in local or state jails, pending transfer to the Federal facility after trial. Again it’s by contract, which is probably why the Orange Co. jail (in Hillsborough?) rather than the Wake Co. jail (in Raleigh) houses Federal prisoners for the Federal court in Raleigh; the contract is with them, and presumably the Wake Co. Sheriff, with an overload of prisoners already, didn’t want to contract with the Feds.
The prehearing transfer is possible - as is PolyCarp’s “contracting due to overcrowding” scenario. That is why in my post, I said that I was generalizing on the rules. I was trying to give readersa starting point to understand why people TEND to go to which type facility. Oftentimes there are reciprocal agreements to accomodate detainees(pre-adjudiction individuals).
Footnote: We seldom use theword “pre-trial”, since there are so few actual trials. In reality, it is more likely (90 - 95% most places) that the legal issues will be resolved at a hearing before a judge, but without benefit of a full trial.
Gringo_Miami, I take it from the handle that you’re from/in Florida? Is that also where you worked? Does this period vary from state to state? In Pennsylvania it used to be - and might still be - that 23 months or less was jail and 24 months or more a state facility
Yes, it was located in Hillsboro before I left the area (late 90s), although I did gather from a newspaper article that a new one was under construction… can’t vouch for location. Complete hijack, in any case.
Gfactor - the privatization of a prison does not change any of the classifications or distinctions laid out in prior posts. The operator must adhere to all of the legal proceedings which would be placed on the contracting jurisdiction (federal, state or local) were they to operate the facility themselves.
[mini-hijack] FYI… I am NOT a fan of privatization of correctional facilities… but that is a different thread. [/mini-hijack]
Quite often, a jurisdiction, whether federal or state or local, runs out of space to house prisoners. In many cases, as a result, the jurisdiction subcontracts prisoners to another facility. Back in the early 1990s I was aware of many federal prisoners being housed in county jails. In those cases, the county sheriff’s departments were making a loto f money by renting out their space.
The U.S. Marshals Service is responsible for detaining and transporting to trial those who have been arrested for federal crimes, excluding illegal aliens. As has been mentioned, the Marshals contract with state and local prisons in the vicinity of the relevant federal court to house most of these detainees.
Upon conviction, federal prisoners are transfered to the custody of the Bureau of Prisons to serve out their term. The BOP maintains facilites that are rated minimum, low, medium, high, or administrative depending on the nature of the offenders and the security needed to accomodate them. They will also often contract with state and local prisons to house prisoner overflow.
If you’re sentenced to imprisonment under provincial law, you would go to a provincial corrections centre.
If you’re sentenced to a prison term under federal law (e.g. - the Criminal Code), you could go to a provincial correctional centre or a federal penitentiary, depending on the length of your sentence. By long-standing agreement betwen the federal and provincial governments, the dividing line is two years. If your sentence is less than two years, you go to a provincial corrections centre; two years or more, and it’s off to the pen with you.
That’s why you often see a sentence of “two years less a day” - if the judge decides that you should serve in the provincial system, the judge gives a sentence of two years less a day, also known colloquially as a “deuce less.”