Among penal institutions, prisons and juvenile prisons house those offenders sentenced to imprisonment with or without work and misdemeanor detention without work and provide necessary treatment for them. Detention houses mainly house unsentenced inmates (persons arrested or detained or those detained who have not yet been tried and sentenced; hereinafter the same). Penal institutions have workhouses in which offenders who are unable to pay fines or petty fines are detained, and except for some institutions also have houses of Kanchi confinement in which persons subject to confinement as the punishment for contempt of court (Kanchi confinement) under the provision of Article 2 of the Act for Maintenance of Order in Court-Room (Act No. 286 of 1952) etc. are detained.
  The Act on Penal Institutions and the Treatment of Sentenced Inmates (hereinafter referred to as the “Inmates Treatment Act”) which was enforced on May 24, 2006 was partly amended, and the Act on Penal Detention Facilities and Treatment of Inmates and Detainees (Act No. 50 of 2005; hereinafter referred to as the “Penal Detention Facilities Act”) has been enforced since June 1, 2007.
  As of April 1, 2007, with regard to penal institutions (meaning “prisons” before the enforcement of the Inmates Treatment Act; hereinafter the same), there were 75 main institutions (60 prisons (including 3 return-to-society promotion centers), 8 juvenile prisons, and 7 detention houses) and 112 branches (8 branch prisons and 104 branch detention houses).
  Furthermore, the women's guidance home, apart from penal institutions, is one of the corrective institutions which houses women of 20 years of age or over placed under guidance disposition by committing the offense in Article 5 of the Anti-Prostitution Act (solicitation, etc.). At the women's guidance home, women placed there receive guidance in daily life, occupational guidance and medical care, etc. necessary for rehabilitation. As of April 1, 2007, there is one women's guidance home in Tokyo. In regard to women newly placed there in the last ten years since 1997, there was only one woman in 2005, and none in 2006 (Source: Annual Report of Statistics on Correction).