If you are confused about the terms jail and prison, this article is the best guide for you. Go through this piece to learn all the differences between prison and jail.
Sometimes, being unaware of the differences between prison and jail leads to confusion and overlap of the words. Prison and jail are often used interchangeably, but they serve different purposes. Usually, local law enforcement or local government agencies run jails. They are designated as a misdemeanor conviction versus a felony. So, in some examples, where misdemeanor sentences are run consecutively, one may spend more than a year in jail.
On the other hand, prisons are generally operated by either a state government or the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). These are designed to hold criminals convicted of more serious crimes, typically any felony. Furthermore, prisons are designed for long-term incarceration and are better developed for the living needs of their population. In contrast, jails tend to have more transient people and less well-developed facilities. If you want more in-depth details about the difference between prison and jail, keep reading this article.
What is prison?
A prison is a building in which people are legally held as a punishment for the severe crime they have committed or even while awaiting trial. They are designed to keep maintenance order and discipline among inmates, ensuring the care, custody, and control of the prisoner, execution, and implementation of sentences awarded by the court of law. Holding accused persons awaiting trial is an essential function of contemporary prisons. Simply put, prisons are responsible for the confinement of inmates who are arrested and awaiting trial while on judicial demand.
Moreover, it is responsible for the people who have been convicted of crimes or sentenced to serve time in prison. In prisons, rehabilitation of inmates through vocational training and reformation of inmates through education is conducted. Some other functions include capacity-building of prison staff, the recreation of inmates within the parameters of security, and psychological and social counseling of inmates and duties of staff.
In prison, a person’s freedom, movement, and access to everything are strictly restricted due to punishment for committing a crime. In the United States, more than two million people are in prisons and more than 400,000 work in them which is why prisons are a big business. In addition, prisons are most commonly used within a criminal justice system, people charged with crimes may be imprisoned until their trial, and those pleading or being found guilty of crimes at trial may be sentenced to a specified period of imprisonment.
Furthermore, prisons can also be used as a tool of political repression by authoritarian regimes. Their perceived opponents may be imprisoned for political crimes, often without trial or legal due process. This use is illegal under most conditions of international law governing fair administration of justice.
What is jail?
A jail is a local facility under the jurisdiction of a city, regional district, or country where people are held due to committing a crime. Jails are short-term holding places for the newly arrested and those awaiting trial or sentencing. Those people who are sentenced to serve a short time that is less than a year may be housed in the local jail for the duration of their sentence. People accused of minor crimes are kept in jail. Usually, jails are small buildings that keep prisoners only till they go to trial or for criminals with short-time punishments.
Generally, a prisoner only spends around 90 days in jail, but if the person is accused of a more serious crime may be kept in jail until their trial or until they are transferred to a larger facility. The person who manages all the things and puts the criminal in jail is called a jailer. In the United States, jails are typically handled at the local levels, such as by a town or country. A person who commits a minor offense such as being drunk in public or trespassing may be sentenced to spend time in a country jail.
If the police arrest a person, they are usually jailed until they are taken to trial. Depending on the judge’s ruling, they may be jailed again as punishment for a crime. In the United States, most jail systems and the Federal Bureau of Prisons have banned inmates from using tobacco products in jails, including cigarettes, smokeless tobacco, chew and dip, and e-cigarettes.
Prison and jail difference
- A prison is a place for criminals convicted of serious crimes. As jail is a place of confinement for persons held in lawful custody, It is primarily for lawbreakers. In contrast, a jail is a place for minor crimes.
- In prison, people are incarcerated in a large facility for those serving long-term sentences. In jail, people are kept for minor crimes and short-time punishment in a local, regional, or city jail.
- Jails typically imply that it’s relatively small, local, and for a short-term period of incarceration. In contrast, a prison means a large facility for the confinement of people convicted of crimes and serving long-term sentences in federal prison.
- Prisons are reserved for those convicted of felonies; a prison sentence is standard, whereas jails are designed for shorter stays; jails tend to have fewer services than a standard prison.
- In jails, inmates complain about improper medical care, lack of nutritional food, and inappropriate limitations on movement, like a lack of access to exercise. In contrast, prisons offer more services to the population.
- In prisons, inmates can move freely throughout prisons, whereas they are not allowed to move in jails.
How long can you stay in jail?
Spending time in jail is a daunting thought if you don’t know how long you have to be there. Basically, the time you spend in jail depends on the reason for being there. The first thing you need to think about is what puts you in jail.
You can technically be arrested without going to jail or being taken into custody at all. This situation happens mostly for misdemeanor crimes. If you are taken into custody, you are almost guaranteed some length of jail time. People who wait to plea, be tried, or be sentenced are placed in jail. In addition, those who await transfer and serve shorter, less severe sentences are put in jail.
Whatever the reason, the amount you spend in jail depends on the charges and situation. Situations such as going to jail for drug possession charges may have variable lengths of time. Knowing everything beforehand can give you a rough estimate of how long someone stays in jail after arrest. In addition, jails are used as holding facilities for those who will be going to court. Thus, many people who have been arrested and awaiting plea agreements will be put in jail.
The people who are not bailed out wait for their first appearance in court. In this case, their time in jail depends on how long it takes, maybe only a few days. After seeing a judge, most suspects will be assigned a bail amount if they were not allowed to be bailed out before. However, there are expectations, especially for those facing serious criminal charges. In this case, the defendant will be kept in jail while awaiting trial and sentencing.
Prison vs. jail vs. penitentiary
Prison
A prison is a building in which people are legally held as a punishment for the severe crime they have committed or even while awaiting trial. They are designed to keep maintenance order and discipline among inmates, ensuring the care, custody, and control of the prisoner, execution, and implementation of sentences awarded by the court of law. Holding accused persons awaiting trial is an essential function of contemporary prisons. Simply put, prisons are responsible for the confinement of inmates who are arrested and awaiting trial while on judicial demand.
Jail
Jail is likely the mildest detaining room of them all. It is the place where the convict is kept while waiting for his trial. It is also the imprisonment unit for serving sentences that are only for less than one year. Often, those who incur the simplest misdemeanor and violation cases get themselves arrested and eventually land here. Jail is where the offender will be temporarily drained before receiving the final verdict of his case. It is also where the offenders of minor crimes are placed. Most detainees are those who will serve imprisonment for less than a year.
Penitentiary
The word penitentiary is where the tricky part comes in. Earlier, federal prisons were widely accepted or recognized as penitentiaries. Everyone is likely just too concerned about using the most politically correct term that they ended up making the definition of penitentiary closer or the same as that of prison and correctional facilities. In penitentiary, felons land when they finally serve their seemingly longer sentences or when they are already found guilty.
The federal government primarily maintains these facilities. It is believed that every state has one. This is contrary to jails, which are usually kept in smaller jurisdictions. A country or city can have several jails, for that matter. Being maintained by smaller units of the government, jails are obviously smaller units of the government. Jails are obviously smaller in size and can only house a limited number of detainees. There are also a minimal number of amenities in jail if any.
Key difference:
The Penitentiary is a detention unit for more severe types of offenders. It is also where reformatory discipline or punishment is done, whereas jail is synonymous with shorter detention, whereas penitentiary suggests longer imprisonment. In prison, people are legally held as a punishment for their severe crimes or even while awaiting trial. Jail is maintained by smaller jurisdiction units like counties and cities, while the state or the federal government maintains penitentiaries. In addition, jails have fewer amenities and are also smaller in size compared to penitentiaries.
Types of prisons
Prisons are designed to keep people in custody who break laws and to remove them from free society. Inmates are locked for a set time and have minimal freedom during their incarceration. While every prison serves the same primary purpose, there are many different types of prisons. Here are some of the types of prisons mentioned:
Juvenile
An individual under the age of 18 is believed to be a juvenile. Any person who is not of legal age is never locked up in a general prison with adults. Instead of the prison, they are kept in a facility that is designed exclusively for juveniles.
Minimum security prisons
These prisons are usually reserved for white-collar criminals who have committed acts such as embezzlement or fraud. Although these are serious crimes, they are non-violent in nature, and thus the perpetrators are not considered to be a risk for violence. These perpetrators are sent to facilities that give them a dormitory-type living environment, fewer guards, and more personal freedoms.
Medium security prisons
These are the standard facilities used to house most criminals. They feature cage-style housing, armed guards, and a much more rigid daily routine than minimum security.
High-security prisons
These prisons are reserved for the most violent and dangerous offenders. These prisons have far more guards than both minimum and medium security and very little freedom. Each person confined in such a prison is considered a high-risk individual.
Military
Every military branch has its own prison facilities that are used specifically for military personnel who have broken laws that affect national security or to house prisoners of war. The treatment of these prisoners has been a subject of much debate recently, and the definition of torture for enemy combatants has become controversial and often discussed.
Psychiatric
Lawbreakers deemed to be mentally unfit are sent to psychiatric prisons designed with resemblances to hospitals. Once there, the prisoners or patients are provided with psychiatric help for their mental disorders. As with any prison that pursues rehabilitation methods, psychiatric prisons are intended to try and help people instead of just confining them as a means of punishment.
Jail v Prison
Jail is a locally-operated, short-term facility, whereas prison is a state or federally operated, long-term facility. Jails are primarily used for detaining inmates awaiting trial or sentencing. They can also house inmates sentenced to less than a year. This will vary depending on the state. Prisons are long-term facilities used after sentencing, where felons and prisoners are housed for more than a year. These sentencing guidelines may vary by state. There is an integrated corrections system of jails and prisons in six states.
Federal vs. State
Federal prisons are under the jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), a subordinate of the department of justice. If the crime the prisoner committed is federal, they will probably end up in federal prison. The peculiarity is violent crimes, which are usually dealt with by state prisons. The federal prison system was begun with the Three Prisons Act of 1891. The law formed the first three federal prisons at Leavenworth, Atlanta, Kansas, Georgia, and McNeil Island, Washington. State prisons are more than federal prisons.
As imprisonment became the usual form of punishment in the US, states began developing their own similar but unique prison systems. Each state determines how its correctional system will act. The main difference besides offense between state and federal prisons is the amount of time served on a sentence. Federal prisons restrict parole, so the amount of time served is significantly higher than the average time served in state prison.
What is the difference between the county jail and prison?
County jail houses inmates that are serving time that is less than a year. In addition, housed in county jails are inmates awaiting their sentence, so they are currently making appearances in court and could not make bail. The critical difference between county jails and prisons is that jails are intended for short sentences and temporary confinement, while prisons are for felony sentencing longer than a year.
Jails are often used interchangeably as places of detention. If you want to be specific, jail can be used to describe a place for those awaiting trial or held for minor crimes, whereas prison represents a place for criminals convicted of serious crimes. Jail is more for short-term sentences, while prison is for those with a long-term sentence. When thinking about it, prison seems like the more intense of the two. Prison is considered to be much worse than jail.
What are the similarities between jails and prisons?
There are a lot of similarities between jails and prisons.
- In both places, the person is separated from society and loses freedom.
- Imposition of the rules and regulations designed to allow inmate control by staff members.
- In jails and prisons, the food that is served is of a very low quality.
- In both jails and prisons, the inmate has identification numbers and uniforms.
- In jails and prisons, medical or dental treatment quality is low.
- In both places, there are disturbances such as gang wars and outright riots in addition to numerous fights between inmates, often resulting in death.
- Both places have excessively abusive staff, and a good percentage of people employed in the incarceration business (The United States is the undisputed pioneer in inmate labor) are there just for the pleasure of the ability to abuse their authority without repercussions.
- The excessive dependence on prisons and jails reflects an outright display of fascism or some other method of totalitarianism.
- In both jail and prison, the person is away from his family and loses dignity.
Final words
You may have been confused between the two terms of prison and jail. Keep in mind that a prison is a place for criminals convicted of serious crimes, whereas jail is a place of confinement for persons held in lawful custody. It is primarily for lawbreakers. Prisons are designed for severe crimes, but jail is a place for minor crimes. There are some similarities too. In both places, a person who commits a crime is in custody and loses freedom by getting separated from society.
