imprisonment -- (putting someone in prison or in jail as lawful punishment)
captivity, imprisonment, incarceration, immurement -- (the state of being imprisoned; "he was held in captivity until he died"; "the imprisonment of captured soldiers"; "his ignominious incarceration in the local jail"; "he practiced the immurement of his enemies in the castle dungeon")
imprisonment, internment -- (the act of confining someone in a prison (or as if in a prison))