Prisons are places where people are held in captivity or confinement. “Jeremiah have they cast into prison,” and they had sought to take away the life of the speaker’s father and driven him out of the land (1 Nephi 7:14). A speaker said, “That thou mayest say to the prisoners: Go forth; to them that sit in darkness: Show yourselves” (1 Nephi 21:9).
When Ammon entered the land of Ishmael, the Lamanites bound him and carried him before the king. The king could “slay them, or to retain them in captivity, or to cast them into prison, or to cast them out of his land” (Alma 17:20). A decree said that people should not lay their hands on them to bind them or “cast them into prison; neither should they spit upon them, nor smite them” (Alma 23:2).
Moroni sent orders to retain Lamanite prisoners as ransom for prisoners taken by the Lamanites (Alma 52:8). After robbers were taken prisoners, they were cast into prison, and those who repented and entered a covenant that they would murder no more were set at liberty (3 Nephi 5:4). Those who did not belong to the church cast disciples into prison, but “the prisons could not hold them, for they were rent in twain” (3 Nephi 28:19).