Prisons, an institution designed to safely house people who have been convicted of crimes. These people are known as prisoners or internees and are held in continuous custody for a certain period of time. The type of crime determines the length of the sentence. For some of these crimes (e.g. murder) individuals can be sentenced to life in prison. For an individual to be incarcerated, they must be charged with violating the criminal law and then tried and found guilty by a jury of their peers. Then the offender will be given a sentence for a specific punishment. Depending on the nature of the crime and whether or not it is a first offense decides whether the punishment will be probation or incarceration in a jail or prison. According to historians, temples were used as shrines before the concept of prison evolved. They were used for the escape of the accused, but if they failed to reach him, they were punished by the accuser, which sometimes ended in death (Kosof, 1995, pp..19).