Seemingly everybody who’s been to both jail and prison says that jail is actually worse than prison. Supposedly prison food is less bad than jail food, prison is somewhat less boring, prison has more visitation rights, the inmates in prison are less badly behaved and the correction officers in prison are less bad.
Seems pretty weird since jail is for more minor offenders and, even worse, people who haven’t been convicted of a crime at all and are being held pre-trial.
I think it would depend on the jail and the prison.
I think this must be another transatlantic difference in terminology. To me “jail” and “prison” are synonymous: there are different regimes for different categories of prisoner, but there are all sorts of terms for those.
Jail is short-term, prison is long-term (in North America).
I have to imagine a large component is that in prison, there is enough time for a persistent, stable society to form. They may be bad people, but they’re still human. They form friendships, join cliques, build trust, develop rules of conduct, and so on. They learn what they can get away with in relationship with the officers, and the officers have time to learn the quirks of the individual inmates. In contrast, inmates in jail might only spend a few days or weeks there before someone else rotates in. It’s just not long enough to develop strong relationships.
Since jail is shorter term, they can also get away with worse amenities. The classic example being the drunk tank, where a bunch of people are thrown into the same cell, but it’s considered (sorta) ok because it’s usually only overnight.
Reportedly, in prison, many disputes occur with newly-arrived inmates – that’s when they integrate into the society of the prison, and determine their place in the ‘pecking order’ of the group. After that, things settle down (until there are disputes), so most of the time is fairly quiet.
But in jail, new people are arriving (and others leaving) all the time. So there is constant churn in the ‘society’, with new people trying to show dominance and others trying to maintain their position.
Also, jail arrivals are just off the streets – mostly bitter & angry about being caught, and a large percentage drunk or high upon arrival. In prison, new people are coming from previous jail somewhere, so should at least be sober.
It’s not entirely transatlantic; the terms are often used interchangeably in the US by those who don’t know that there is in fact a difference.
If they were out on bail prior to self-surrendering to prison they could always show up drunk or high, but in that case, they’d be tossed into solitary or its equivalent until they sobered up. So, as you said, not really an issue as compared to jail.
The jail/prison distinction obviously is a feature of the English language. In Germany there is a different but related distinction.
Untersuchungshaft (detention pending trial) is detention when one has been arrested and is held by decision of a judge (which must be sought at the latest the day after arrest) on grounds of being a flight risk (Fluchtgefahr), or of being a risk to suborn witnesses or suppress evidence (Verdunklungsgefahr), or when the crime in question is a very grave one and one is considered a risk to society.
Strafhaft begins when you have been sentenced and, crucially, the appeals process has been exhausted (because your appeal has been rejected or you have not appealed).
The two regimes are often available in the same penitentiary, but Untersuchungshaft prisoners are at a disadvantage: contacts other than to their lawyer are much more strictly restricted, and correspondence is strictly censored by the trial judge (because of the danger of imperiling testimony or material evidence, or even imperling a witness), and they cannot begin a course of study in the prison school, or an apprenticeship (a frequent feature of longer prison terms).
For this reason some defendants instruct their lawyer to not appeal or drop an unpromising appeal, in order to change to the Strafhaft regime. Sometimes the defendant’s lawyer waives his right to appeal immediately in the courtroom (on instruction by the client), to get it over and have the client go directly into Strafhaft.
I don’t know how to translate the title of this thread into Spanish or German, this distinction is simply not made in these languages. Perhaps in South-American Spanish? I’d be surprised, paging @Frodo @Schnitte @EinsteinsHund
What exactly is the difference between jail and prison?
ETA: Have read the article linked above in vera(dot)org about the difference. As Mops wrote, in Europe there is no such separation.
Gaol is even worse than jail!
To be serious, in the 3 UK criminal justice jursidictions - (England & Wales), Northern Ireland and Scotland, being ‘on remand’ means you are awaiting trial but are not allowed bail - you are detained in prison but have not been convicted. I believe prisons have separate remand wings that have different rules from the convict sections.
There are different categories of prison for convicts depending on things like the escape risk, the type of rehabilitation that is happening, etc.
Well, up to this thread, I also didn’t know the difference between jail and prison. I had a vague notion that there was a difference, but I thought it rather had to do with the size and location of the facilities, thinking a jail was a smaller institution somewhere in a small town, while a prison was a big facility for hundreds or even thousands of inmates at state level, so ignorance fought. As you say, there’s no way to translate the difference into German. There are three levels I can translate jail/prison into German. First there is the general, neutral term "Gefängnis. Then there are the official, legalese terms “Justizvollzugsanstalt” or “Strafvollzugsanstalt”, and finally a couple of colloquial terms like “Knast”, “Kittchen” or “Bau”. None of these words denote a distinction like “jail” and “prison” in (American?) English.
The American language. In Ireland, jail and prison are exact synonyms. There is a distinction between being on remand and serving a sentence, but it’s not reflected in the name of the institution.
This distinction is only in the US, not North America. We don’t use it in Canada.
I stand corrected; thanks.
You’re welcome.
This is the usage I’m familiar with.
One distinction is that when on remand, an inmate is not eligible for any rehab programmes.
We do have a constitutional distinction between « prison » and « penitentiary ». Prisions are run by the provinces, penitentiaries are run by the feds.
The dividing line is the length of sentence. Someone sentenced to under two years goes to a provincial prison. Two years or more, they go to the penitentiary.
In practice, I think most provinces now use the term « correctional centre », not prison.
That’s why a common sentence is « two years less a day ». By giving that sentence, the judge has decided to send the person to a provincial correctional centre, not the pen.
Well, we have “Cárcel” and “Prisión”, the latter is obviously “Prison” but I’m practically sure they are synonymous.
One of the most famous prisons in the country is in the suburb of Devoto and it’s normally called “La carcel de Devoto” so at least colloquially there is no difference between the two words.
Is “Cárcel” from the same root as the English « incarcerated » ?
I think so, yes.
I had a look at the history of things here in South Australia. It seems there is a lot of history involved, as things change in society. Currently we basically look like the UK with remand centres for those awaiting trial, and prisons of various levels of security ranging from ultra-max equivalents down to much laxer security, often housed in the same grounds.
Looking at some of the historical legislation both improves and muddies the terminology. The first act establishing the legal framework for prisons here was the Gaols Act. It was superseded by a Prisons Act. A later act rather usefully defines some terms. A prison is any gaol, labour prison or house of correction. The act is clear that prison is the generic. And we got the term house of correction, just to confuse matters. The same act makes it clear that gaols may hold those who have not yet been sentenced to a term of imprisonment. So that usage aligns with the US jail. A further confusion is that even in the mid 1930’s some prisons could include debtors prison in their activities. In general, criminals sentenced to imprisonment were expected to perform labour, and so you get labour prisons as a sub-class. (Our first prison really did have the prisoners breaking rocks in a quarry.) And you also get police prisons. Which seems to be something a bit bigger than the local lockup, but provided a small facility in communities far away from the big city. They could also house actual convicted prisoners and debtors.Things get murkier when language talks about places for the imprisonment of habitual criminals.
I suspect there is a lot of accidents of history in the names. No doubt, prisoners abide within prisons. How you got yourself into a prison might be for a range of reasons. At least debtors prisons are no longer a thing. At least not here.
I think it is the same root too, and probably the same root as the German Kerker (dungeon). The most widely used German dictionary concurs:
mittelhochdeutsch kerker, karkære, althochdeutsch karkāri < lateinisch carcer
And of course, the more phonetic German language continues the hard « k » sound from the Latin « carcer », but English « incarcerate » keeps the hard « k » for the first « c » and uses a soft « s » for the second « c ».