Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US Und.) a workhouse or prison.

1896		F. Hutcheson Barkeep Stories 98: ‘’Bout all you know is to t’row some poor guy dat ain’t got nottin’ in de bandhouse’.
1905		Eve. World (NY) 26 Oct. 15/1: The route between the depot and Chief Harmon’s band-house is lined with a dazzling array of tonsil-varnish works.
1912		Day Book (Chicago) 19 Dec. 9/1: R.E. Wood [...] charged with wife abandonment, said he would take ‘bandhouse’ sentence in preference to paying wife.
1914		Wash. Post 11 Nov. Misc. 3/4: The final curtain of the piece when the malefactor is sent away to the ‘big house’ or the ‘band house.’.
1920		C.S. Montanye ‘Perfect Crime’ in Penzler Pulp Fiction (2007) 351: He was doing a stretch in a band-house in Joplin for a job in Chi.
1927		‘Jargon of the Und.’ in DN V 438: Band house, A prison.
1930		C.R. Shaw Jack-Roller 100: I thought if I was to go back to the ‘bandhouse’ I’d rather have some new scenery.
1937		(con. 1905–25) E.H. Sutherland Professional Thief (1956) 76: A person who is in the bandhouse (work house) for beating an A.&P. store with a four-dollar cheque would refer to himself as a ‘paper-hanger’; a thief would refer to him as a clown.
1962		Ragen & Finston World’s Toughest Prison 790: band house – Jail or prison (House of Correction, Chicago).
1963		L.F. Freed Crime in S. Afr. 107: A ‘band-house’, ‘calaboose’, ‘clink’, or ‘cooler’ is a prison.
1991		(con. 1920s) O.D. Brooks Legs 116: ‘Aren’t you afraid of making the band house?’ he asked. ‘Band house, what’s that?’ I stammered. ‘Jail, that’s what the band house is.’.