I’m an American and I don’t differentiate between jail and gaol; I just assumed the latter to just be a funny European spelling of the former.
Yeah, as if I was surprised :|
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.
The American distinction is jail v prison.
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.
France also has the same distinction. ‘maison d’arret’ = jail, ‘centre de detention’ = prison.
the word ‘prison’ however (that also exist in French) is a generic term for both.