A correctional facility, detention center, gaol (Australia, New Zealand, Republic of Ireland, UK), jail (US, Canada), penitentiary, prison, or remand centre is a facility in which inmates are forcibly confined and denied a variety of freedoms under the authority of the state as a form of punishment. Prisons are most commonly used within a criminal justice system: people charged with crimes may be imprisoned until they are brought to trial; those pleading or being found guilty of crimes at trial may be sentenced to a specified period of imprisonment. Besides their use for punishing civil crimes, jails and prisons are frequently used by authoritarian regimes.