Jail. The
penitentiary. The
lock-up. The
hoosegow.
Up the
river. A place to be avoided, if possible.
This probably evolved from
criminal slang, and especially,
prisoner slang. When you spend a lot of time in
prison, you have two
houses: the
little house with wives and kids and
freedom, where you'd prefer to be, and the big house, where the
food sucks, you can't see the
sky, and everyone seems to want to stick a
shiv in your neck. Gimme the little house any day of the week...