The modern era has been a period of change and turmoil in the nation s correctional system. Between 1960 and 1980, the prisoner s rights movement occurred. Well-publicized riots led to a national concern about violence in the system. Further, the failure of the rehabilitation model and the medical model has led to the current view of prisons as places of control, incapacitation, and punishment. Jails and Prisons Jails hold people who await trial, have been sentenced there for misdemeanor offenses, or have violated parole or probation.
Jails also hold some prison inmates in an effort to reduce the crowding in prisons.
Most people in jail are young, male, single, undereducated, over half are minorities, and most are arrested for property crimes. The population of women in jail has increased approximately 138 percent since 1983. The byword in this type of institution is security. Minimum-security prisons have no armed guards or walls. These prisons house the most trustworthy and least violent inmates.