Basic themes of prison subcultural research have been violence and stress, contraband, sexual relations, race relations, and power relations. In contrast, research on jail populations has been limited to such demographic data as race, sex, population size, percent of juveniles, and jail size. Little is known about how jail population characteristics influence jail operations, suggesting that jail administrators do not have sufficient empirical data to tailor jail administrative policies to the social milieu of the inmate population. What is known about the jail population is that it is divided between convicted and unconvicted persons housed in large jails which exceed occupancy standards. Overall, little is known about inmate interactions in jails. Future jail research should focus on violence and stress adaptation, sexual relations, race relations, contraband markets, power relations, origins of the inmate subculture, the language and roles of inmates, and comparisons of jails differing in size and structure. 2 notes and 47 references.