Only Americans (to the extent I know) differentiate jail and gaol. Jail and prison.
I first read gaol in a 1960s kids book by Randolph Snow. An Australian as it happens.
I first read gaol in a 1960s kids book by Randolph Snow. An Australian as it happens.
But yes, we do differentiate between jail and prison - the former usually being for those with short sentences or for those awaiting trial, and the latter being for those with long sentences. Interesting that other countries don't maintain that distinction - but I guess most countries don't have such a sprawling prison-industrial complex to warrant separate short-term v. long-term detention classifications.
In practice, the distinction is overblown.
Jails do hold long term prisoners, and prisons get pre-trial prisoners too.
There’s literally a market for jail beds. So prisoners are often sent where there’s an open spot, with little distinction between “short term” and “long term”.
A better distinction is that jails are run by a law enforcement agency, while prisons are not.
the word "prison" however (that also exist in French) is a generic term for both.
> A better distinction is that jails are run by a law enforcement agency, while prisons are not.
Depends on whether you count corrections agencies as law enforcement agencies. On the one hand, I'm pretty sure all states have distinct agencies for police v. prisons, but on the other hand, corrections officers are usually sworn peace officers and therefore would count as "law enforcement".
Another distinction, come to think of it, is that prisons are usually under federal or state agencies¹, while jails are usually under county or municipal agencies.
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¹ The only exception I've found is Chester County Prison in Pennsylvania, which is under the Chester County Dept. of Corrections. Wikipedia also has an article on a "Northampton County Prison" (also in PA), but that county's website calls it the "Northampton County Jail"; on a tangential note, if corrections agencies don't count as law enforcement agencies, then the Northampton County Jail would be an exception to the "jails are run by a law enforcement agency" rule.
Post conviction, the prisoner will be moved to a state penitentiary to serve out their sentence.
I don't know how these distinctions work at the federal level.
Most of the customers are states that need to put a prisoner somewhere, and most of the sellers are states that have a spare cell somewhere.
It’s mostly government to government sales.
I agree concern over private prisons is overblown. The very idea conjures up Dickensonian workhouses. Not quite the reality.
It seems like there's a lot of beliefs that don't universally apply.
You inhabit a very different reality than everybody else. Americans do not differentiate jail and gaol; Americans don't use the word "gaol" under any circumstances, ever. It is not a part of American English.
Although that distinction is rarely relevant in casual conversation in practice. People say "jail" and mean "prison" all the time.
It can definitely come across as a “Frankenstein’s monster” type of pedantic correction, but they truly do mean two different ideas in the US
These same games will have voice actors pronounce "ye" as it's written, unaware that the y is a typographic substitute for Þ. "ye olde" is pronounced "the old". But likewise, there's some VAs that clearly only ever read a word, like in the newer God of War games where a character mangles "prescient".
Since that's the topic being discussed, then first portion of your statement wasn't necessary.
Americans never use ‘gaol’. It’s rarely used in Ireland but definitely a term there.
British English also differentiates jail and prison, by extension I assume that's universal.
I don't think I've ever once encountered "gaol" before today. Reading the parent comment, I believed it was a non-English language loanword, and probably a recent one at that, until I read the comments.
It's not like I avoid archaic works, either. It's possible I did come across the word at some point, but it was a one-off and without any repetition it faded quickly from my memory.
Am I a one-off?