Question by Hailey: What is the difference between provincial and federal penitentiaries?
does anyone know the difference?

Best answer:

Answer by Leafer
Well…assuming you’re asking from Canada,,

There are no provincial penitentiaries-the are however, provincial jails.The main difference between the two is as far as the application of law goes,is provincial jails are where people are sent who are serving sentences of less than two years.(You may hear of someone being sentenced to “Two years less a day”).If the sentence for the crime (or combination of crimes) is more than 2 years the person will be sent to a federal penitentiary.(AKA a “prison”)

A few other differences would be :

Since one is ran by the federal gov’t (prison) and one by the province (jail) naturally they are paid for by either “all taxpayers” (federal prisons) or just the people in one province (jails).If a person is sent to a federal prison they may be sent a long way from their home as prisons are scattered out across the country-since not every province has a federal prison in it.

Federal prisons have more dangerous offenders in them and security is tighter.Prisons also tend to have more recreational facilities and rehab/activity programs versus provincial jails.

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