Might as Well Not Be in Prison At All: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

Sometimes the [[Big Bad]] is such a [[Manipulative Bastard]] that throwing him into prison isn't much of a hindrance to him. It's not necessarily that he's in a [[Cardboard Prison]] and [[Play-Along Prisoner|can get out at any time]], or that he's in a [[Luxury Prison Suite]] and thus might not even notice his circumstances. Rather, it's that while he's in prison, he is still capable of leading his organization and moving his schemes against the good guys forward. Prison is just a change of location for him, and won't slow down his evil plot to take over the world for one nanosecond.

 

{{examples}}

* In ''[[Zettai Karen Children]]'', Kyosuke is the world's most powerful psychic. He is kept in a cell that is supposed to block all psychic powers. He has no difficulty leading his esper organization PANDRA from there (even going as far as having some of the members in the same cell without anyone knowing).

 

=== DC ===

* In the ''[[Green Lantern]]'' comics, powerfully telepathic arch-villain Hector Hammond's body is imprisoned (he's serving multiple life sentences) and is supposedly under the effects of a psionic inhibitor... but Hammond's mind is so powerful that he can still telepathically control people hundreds or even thousands of miles away from the prison without ever leaving his cell.

* A rare heroic example of this was #711, one of the oddest crimefighters in [[The Golden Age of Comic Books]], created by George Brenner, the creator of the Clock, the first hero in comics to adopt the [[Coat, Hat, Mask]] style. #711 was originally an attorney named Daniel Dyce who decided to do an extraordinary favor for his friend Jacob Horn after the latter is arrested for murder. Dyce confesses to Horn's alleged crimes (it is never truly revealed whether Horn is guilty or not) so Horn can visit his wife, who is about to give birth to her son. Horn promises to turn himself in later and recant Dyce's confession, and he intends to keep this promise, but in a bizarre twist, he's killed in a car accident while going to do so. With nobody to clear him, Dyce is convicted and sentenced to life in prison, but in ''another'' bizarre twist, he accidentally discovers a forgotten tunnel underneath the prison, allowing easy access to the outside and easily escape. But he also realizes he has nowhere to go if he ''does'' escape. With the ability to go to and from prison as he pleases, he decides to make his own [[Coat, Hat, Mask]] identity and fight crime using his prison ID as his ''nom de plume''. This eventually pays off in his favor, as prison gossip often clues him in on criminal schemes, and a lot of crooks he brings down end up in the same prison.

 

* ''[[The Dark Knight]]'': It was part of the Joker's plan all along to be arrested, because he needed to be inside police headquarters in order to eliminate Lau.

* In ''[[Law Abiding Citizen]]'', Clyde Shelton is a grieving husband and father whose [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] against everyone involved in the Philadelphia criminal justice system is not even slowed by incarceration in solitary confinement. Eventually, it's revealed that {{spoiler|he has spent the past decade digging tunnels and installing secret doors into every solitary confinement cell in the prison. Getting sent to jail and solitary was all part of his [[Evil Plan]]}}.

* Corsican mob leader César in Jacques Audiard's ''Un prophète''. His gang and the prison administration obey him; he helps the protagonist, Malik, get day leave so he can run his errands for him. (Well, for most of the film anyway...)

* In ''[[The Apple Dumpling Gang| The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again]]'', the toughest guy in the prison is a robber baron named Big Mac, who pretty much rules the place, he and his gang using it as a base while continuing his crimes with a perfect alibi. Unfortunately for him, he believes [[Stupid Crooks| Amos and Theodore's]] unearned reputations, and recruits them for a train robbery, getting caught in the process after the bumbling pair accidentally - as they always do - foil his plan.

 

* In the massive [[Neal Stephenson]] trilogy, ''[[The Baroque Cycle]]'', Newgate and the Tower of London can look like this: visitors freely come and go and some prisoners have a kind of parole. Humorously, high class is another kind of prison: in the Tower, you are allowed to live on the publicly accessible grounds on the entirely reasonable assumption that leaving is tantamount to admission of guilt and the forfeiture of rank, which latter is tantamount to death.

* In the [[Dale Brown]] novel ''Wings of Fire'' it eventually comes to light that {{spoiler|Pavel Kazakov}} is still a real threat despite having been arrested at the end of the previous book in the series.

 

* Angelus in two episodes of Season 4 of ''[[Angel]]''.

* Dumont, the recurring sociopath hacker from ''[[Jake 2.0]]'', could manipulate events, hack computers, and even order hits from behind bars.

* A [[Smallville]] episode featured people buying strategic places in Metropolis in order to buy the city's natural water supply. Winslow Schott masterminded the whole operation from inside his prison cell.

* In an episode of ''[[The West Wing]]'', some DEA agents are captured by a Colombian drug cartel, which demands that a [[No Celebrities Were Harmed|Pablo Escobar stand-in]] be released from prison in exchange for their return. The Colombian government is willing to do it, leaving the White House to debate whether to give in to a terrorist demand, with Sam arguing (unsuccessfully) that because the guy has been able to order kidnappings and murders from his cell, it doesn't make any difference whether he's in prison or not.

 

* In ''[[Monopoly]]'', a late-game tactic is to stay in jail for as long as possible. While in jail, you're still free to conduct business as usual - collecting rent from, bidding on or selling properties. Moving around the board has only two major advantages - collecting $200 for passing "Go" and having right of first refusal for landing on an unsold property. But since there are very few unsold properties in the late game and the $200 for passing "Go" is a pittance compared to landing on another player's developed property, Jail is actually the ''best'' place to be.

** There are frequently [[House Rules]] to avert this. No collecting rent while in jail, a "pot" where all Community Chess/Chance/tax money goes to the person who lands on Free Parking, etc.

*** Not to mention the very common "no auctioning" house rule, so property that a player chooses not to buy remains unowned at least until the next landing.

 

* In ''[[Batman: Arkham Asylum]]'', we learn that [[The Joker]] {{spoiler|discovered that one of the doctors had plans to create a Venom-variant using Arkham inmates as test subjects- supported by the [[Ax Crazy]] [[Knight Templar]] Warden-, and using a [[Secret Identity]] agreed to fund her project with his secret stash of millions of dollars. He later escapes solely to trap Batman inside while Harely Quinn stages a takeover (with the help of at least one corrupt guard), but by that point you might as well say he was running the Asylum before the events of the game even took place. And the people in charge didn't even know it.}}

* ''[[BioShock (series)|Bioshock 2]]'': {{spoiler|Sofia Lamb, First-Rate [[Magnificent Bastard|Magnificent Bitch]] that she is, not only planned her jail-sentence and the circumstances that led to it, but did so ''specifically'' because it was everything she needed when she needed it, being the perfect place for a [[Dark Messiah]] [[Villain with Good Publicity]] to expand [[Path of Inspiration|The Rapture Family]] during [[The End of the World as We Know It|the city's descent into madness]]. The fact that it ''wasn't'' a [[Cardboard Prison]] made it the perfect place for a [[Supervillain Lair]]: what's better than a tightly-guarded, easily-forgotten fortress full of potential [[Mooks]] to help her retake the city [[After the End]]?}}

 

* In one episode of ''[[Justice League]]'', Batman allowed himself to be captured by the Injustice Gang; he feigned helplessness in order to manipulate one of the Gang's members. He later revealed he could have escaped at any time, but if he did he wouldn't have had a resource "on the inside".

* The pilot episode of ''[[Darkwing Duck]]'' had its major villain, Taurus Bulba, running his operation from a prison. He could escape at anytime and he chose to remain in prison because he felt that it was the perfect hideout for him, despite constantly having to deal with an annoying warden.

* This is taken [[Up To Eleven]] in the ''[[Harley Quinn]]'' season two finale. Harley ''breaks into'' Arkham and locks herself in her cell, thinking this is a good way to avoid the temptation to ruin Ivy's wedding, and confident she can escape later. Unfortunately, she can and does after Two-Face decides to use her as an [[Unwitting Pawn]].

 

** [[wikipedia:Pablo Escobar|Pablo Escobar]], then Colombia's richest man, had a plea deal that meant he hired the contractors to build his own prison, "[[wikipedia:La Catedral|La Catedral]]." Rather than be a punishment, being imprisoned basically just meant he had to change his drug business' headquarters to the prison, where he was protected from his enemies and has a staff of people (that is, the guards) waiting on him hand and foot. He allegedly even used the prison to execute members of his crime syndicate who had betrayed him.

** According to Wola (The Washington Office on South America) this is commonplace in corrupt Mexican prisons where drug cartel bosses often continue their business dealings in relative safety.