behind bars

Prepositional phrase

1. (figuratively, idiomatic) In jail, in prison.
   • There is one kind of prison where the man is behind bars, and everything that he desires is outside; and there is another kind where the things are behind the bars, and the man is outside.1905 April–October, Upton Sinclair, chapter XXVII, in The Jungle, New York, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 26 February 1906, →OCLC
   • Some 460,000 Americans are behind bars for drug offenses--a tenfold increase over 1980.2001 May 7, Margot Roosevelt et al., “The War Against The War On Drugs”, in TIME, archived from the original on 01 Feb 2012