History Main / HadToComeToPrisonToBeACrook

* ''Series/MidsomerMurders'': In "[[Recap/MidsomerMurdersS15E2 Picture of Innocence]]", tragically, Grady Felton actually ''was'' innocent of the crime he was sent to prison for. But the injustice of his wrongful imprisonment left him so embittered that he plotted and executed a spree of murders against everyone he considered to have wronged him.

-->'''Vince Larkin:''' Cyrus is a poster child for the criminally insane. He's a true product of the system.
-->'''Duncan Malloy:''' What's that supposed to mean? What are you, one of these sociology majors who thinks we're responsible for breeding these animals?
-->'''Vince Larkin:''' No, but I can point a few fingers if it would make you feel comfortable.

--> '''Earl:''' The next two years were going to be hard, but now I knew I couldn't survive them by doing the same thing Glenn had; let prison turn me into someone I didn't recognize. I realized no matter how scared I get, if I'm going to survive in prison, I have to do it as myself. Cause my name isn't inmate number 28301-016. My name is Earl.

--> '''Lillian Marx:''' [[SarcasmMode It's weird -- it's almost like prison puts you in a criminal mindset, as if spending all day and all night living with and talking to other criminals, completely immersed in their lifestyle and morals and way of thinking, makes you start to act like them.]]

-->[[TearJerker Now let's go say a prayer for]] [[ForWantOfANail a boy who couldn't run as fast as I could.]]

-->-- TropeNamer '''Andy Dufresne''', ''Film/TheShawshankRedemption''

* Andy, from ''Film/TheShawshankRedemption'', is the TropeNamer. Falsely convicted of murdering his wife and her lover, he goes from being an honest banker to using his banking skills to help launder money for the warden. This doesn't really make him any less sympathetic, as all the crimes he commits in jail [[JustifiedCriminal were forced upon him]], [[spoiler:and actually a means to get his abusive jailers arrested]].

->"''On the outside, I was an honest man, straight as an arrow. I [[TropeNamer had to come to prison to be a crook]].''"
-->-- '''Andy Dufresne''', ''Film/TheShawshankRedemption''

[[caption-width-right:350:Just try to tell her to shut up now.]]

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[[caption-width-right:229:Above: Meg before prison.\\
Below: Meg after prison.]]

!!Examples

* When Earl goes to prison in ''Series/MyNameIsEarl'', he meets a prisoner who's on his list for accidentally being sent to Juvey by him. When he gets out of prison, the public takes one look at his shaved head, his prison tattoos, and the tough guy persona he adopted inside to stay alive and decide he's a crook. So he lives up to their expectations by becoming one.

--> '''Earl:''' The next two years were going to be hard, but now I knew I couldn't survive them by doing the same thing Glenn had; let prison turn me into someone I didn't recognize. I realized no matter how scared I get, if I'm going to survive in prison, I have to do it as myself. Cause my name isn't inmate number 28301-016. My Name is Earl.

* ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'' Stone Ocean: Jolyne Kujo was framed for murder and betrayed by both her ex-boyfriend and her lawyer, the latter leaving her to an assassin. Once she gets her hands on a Stand Power from a custody gift, the first thing she does is murder her lawyer with it.

* In ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'', Crono is falsely accused of kidnapping, thrown in jail, and sentenced to death on spurious grounds. Depending on the player's actions, the worst thing he's done before going to jail is stealing and eating an old man's lunch. Escaping execution for a bum rap has him murdering guards left and right. However, if you go back to the castle after this has happened as soon as possible, you will find a group of guards discussing the behavior of the prison guards. They describe the guards as strange people brought in by [[spoiler:The Chancellor, foreshadowing him being the descendant of Yakra from 600 A.D.]]

** This is the message of the episode "Making A Rapist". A man wrongly convicted of rape is released after serving sixteen years in prison. After making friends with the woman formerly believed to be his victim, he's accused of her daughter's rape and murder. [[spoiler:It turns out he did do it, after years of rape and beatings by fellow prisoners. He became attracted to her daughter, then when she laughed him off, he (while drunk) flew into a rage.]] This episode is based on the case of Steven Avery, a man who was wrongly convicted of rape and attempted murder charges in 1985. After being exonerated in 2003, he was then arrested for murder in another case and convicted. Though he maintains he's innocent, the documentary on his case is named ''Making A Murderer'', implying the producers feel the same way (assuming he really did it).

* ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamKnight'' has a downplayed version discussed at the end of the side quest involving rescuing firemen, which ends with the reveal that [[spoiler:the chief had been aiding and abetting Garfield Lynns, AKA Firefly, with arson in order to save his crew's jobs, resulting in Batman taking him to prison once he was saved from his kidnappers. If the quest is complete before the end of the City of Fear Campaign then the Joker hallucination will comment on how putting the Cheif in prison is likely to result in him becoming, as Joker puts it "A fully formed criminal, just what Gotham needs!"]]

** In ''ComicBook/{{Batgirl|2011}}'', Charise Carnes was an innocent socialite who was wrongfully sent to Arkham for the murder of her parents -- the actual culprit had been her then-boyfriend. After managing to appeal her sentence and get released, she became the vigilante Knightfall, violently murdering the poor and disadvantaged as part of a plan to gentrify the Cherry Hill neighborhood.

** Subverted in another episode where a boy who murdered a younger child claims he did it because of the effects of his time at a reform school-type camp, where other participants had abused him. But when the detectives investigate, they determine that many of his stories were false, and that he had in fact been the one terrorizing other participants.

* In ''FanFic/OriginStory'', Wonder Man says this almost verbatim regarding Alex Harris. She became a criminal after escaping custody and hospitalizing several Avengers because she was going to be sent to prison for life because she was wrongly seen as a psychologically unbalance superhuman.

* In ''Film/AnInnocentMan'', Jimmie Rainwood (Creator/TomSelleck) is framed as a drug dealer by two crooked cops that don't want to admit they busted into the wrong house and shot a man who simply walked out of the shower holding a hair dryer. Once he is convicted and ends up in prison, he ends up having to kill another inmate in cold blood to keep the inmate from raping him.

* ''Film/Paddington2'', of all movies, plays with this trope, ultimately subverting it. Paddington is wrongfully convicted of robbing the local antique shop, and while in jail, he falls in with a gang of tough guys lead by the prison cook, Knuckles [=McGinty=]. Knuckles talks the credulous young bear into helping with an elaborate jailbreak plan, claiming that once free, they'll be able to clear his name. Paddington soon realizes what a terrible mistake he has made, but ultimately, [[ChangedMyMindKid it's his good influence on the criminals that wins out]].

* ''Literature/HelpIAmBeingHeldPrisoner'': Max first was sent to prison as a student radical, became criminalized inside and was rearrested for burglary after he got out. Harry (a prankster who accidentally made some politicians get into an accident and has them seek revenge) tries to avert this by keeping from taking part in the crimes of the group, but eventually gets dragged in.

* The central character of ''Literature/TheMentalState'', Zack State, is originally arrested on account of ManslaughterProvocation (albeit an extremely brutal manslaughter with several casualties). However, once he finds himself in prison, his recently triggered sociopathic mindset enables him to perform several illegal acts without remorse. These acts include theft, blackmail, threats, arson, incitement, extortion and drug-handling. Ironically, one of his objectives is to prevent this trope from happening to others.
** Officer Reed unintentionally ends up going down this path. He is actually an undercover officer who infiltrates the priosn in order to identify drug-users and expose them. However, once he falls under Zack's control, he becomes a genuine drug addict and is even forced to assist Zack in his dodgy doings.
** Sargent Haig is a sadistic yet still relatively law-abiding prison guard for most of the story. Then, after Zack frames him for dealing in drugs and he ends up an inmate in his own prison, he resigns himself to joining the very criminals he used to despise in order to get revenge on Zack.

* Annie of "Darkest timeline" in ''Series/{{Community}}'': She originally went crazy because she could not live with the guilt of Pierce's death and ended up being sent to an asylum. When Jeff manages to get her out, she has become completely insane and evil.

** Cersei was always a high-horse backstabbing bitch, but being chained, shaved, and in a position of despair left her [[WesternAnimation/SouthPark fractured but whole]] when she crawled back to her throne. This is an extremely bad situation to be in when one of the previous rulers installed self-destruct explosives on every district, with the kill switch in the hands of the current queen.

* ''Series/{{Life|2007}}'': When we meet Arthur Tins in season 1, he's a low-rate con artist who Crews sends to prison. When we see him again in season 2 after he's escaped, he's a hardened criminal who murders one man, robs an armored car and takes a family hostage.
* When Earl went to prison in ''Series/MyNameIsEarl'', he meets a prisoner who's on his list for accidentally being sent to Juvey by him. When he gets out of prison, the public takes one look at his shaved head, his prison tattoos and the tough guy persona he adopted inside to stay alive and decide he's a crook. So he lives up to their expectations by becoming one.

* This a common theme in Music/SteveEarle songs.

* ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamKnight'' has a downplayed version discussed at the end of the side quest involving rescuing firemen, which ends with the reveal that [[spoiler:the chief had been aiding and abetting Garfield Lynns, AKA Firefly, with arson in order to save his crew's jobs, resulting in Batman taking him to prison once he was saved from his kidnappers. If the quest is complete before the end of the City of Fear Camapign then the Joker hallucination will comment on how putting the Cheif in prison is likely to result in him becoming, as Joker puts it "A fully formed criminal, just what Gotham needs!"]]
* This is the backstory of [[MauveShirt Glitch]] from the ''VideoGame/{{Battletech}}'' video game: As a teen she was falsely assigned as a criminal due to a system glitch (hence her callsign) and spent her formative years in a [=FedSun=] prison, where she had to learn how to act like a hardened criminal just to survive. By the time she was released, becoming [[HiredGuns a mercenary]] was about the only thing she was qualified to do.
* In ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'', Crono is falsely accused of kidnapping, thrown in jail, and sentenced to death on spurious grounds. Depending on the player's actions, the worst thing he's done before going to jail is stealing and eating an old man's lunch. Escaping execution for a bum rap has him murdering guards left and right. Although, if you go back to the castle after this has happened as soon as possible, you will find a group of guards discussing the behavior of the prison guards. They describe the guards as strange people brought in by [[spoiler:The Chancellor, foreshadowing him being the descendant of Yakra from 600 A.D.]]

* ''VideoGame/SlyCooperThievesInTime'': [[spoiler:It's revealed that the BigBad of the game, Le Paradox, also comes from a long line of thieves, much like Sly does. However, they were nowhere near as good as the Coopers and Le Paradox's father was arrested after showing up a little too late to steal the world's largest diamond. This left Le Paradox with no one to show him how to be a thief and he was quickly arrested as well. Once in jail, he began to pick up the skills on how to be an effective thief and left prison as a criminal mastermind.]]

* In the ''WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation'' review of ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' Yahtzee jokes that [[YouAllMeetInACell the PC of each game was locked up]] for a minor adventure related crime before becoming a full-blown adventurer as a result of their incarceration

* Referenced in ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill''. A guy tries to steal Hank's truck, but is caught and arrested. The judge says that if he sends him to prison, the other criminals there are just going to teach him how to be a better thief. Instead, the judge decides that, since he likes trucks so much, [[CoolAndUnusualPunishment his sentence is to live in one]].

* John Dillinger was 21 when in September 1924, he and a pool hall buddy named Ed Singleton robbed a Mooresville, Indiana grocer named Frank Morgan. Two days after the attack, Dillinger was arrested, and thinking the judge would be lenient enough to let him off if he pled guilty and apologized, he didn't bother to hire a lawyer. This was a big mistake, as the judge sentenced him to a 10-20 year sentence in Indiana's Pendleton Reformatory. It was in Pendleton that Dillinger met two of the partners who would be by his side during his infamous 1933-1934 bank robbery spree: Harry "Pete" Pierpont, and Homer Van Meter, both of whom were doing time for armed robberies (Van Meter for highway robbery on a train, Pierpont for bank robbery). All three of these guys were soon transferred to the Indiana State Penitentiary in Michigan City, where Dillinger met most of the other men who would be by his side, including Russell Clark, Charles Makley, and John "Red" Hamilton. They all taught him the art of bank robbery. When Dillinger was paroled in May 1933, he immediately started robbing banks in Indiana and Ohio for money that he used to pull off arrangements to smuggle guns into the prison to break out Makley, Pierpont, Clark, and Hamilton.

* Colombian serial killer [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_López_(serial_killer)]] started as a petty thief but graduated to murder after [[PrisonRape getting raped in jail]].

* Colombian serial killer [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_L%C3%B3pez_(serial_killer) Pedro López]] started as a petty thief but graduated to murder after [[PrisonRape getting raped in jail]].

** In ''ComicBook/{{Batgirl|2011}}'', Charise Carnes was an innocent socialite who was wrongfully sent to Arkham for the murder of her parents - the actual culprit had been her then-boyfriend. After managing to appeal her sentence and get released, she became the vigilante Knightfall, violently murdering the poor and disadvantaged as part of a plan to gentrify the Cherry Hill neighborhood.

* In ''ComicBook/MagicPowder'', Timebomb, the dwarvish bomber, was innocent when he was first sent to prison - he was wrongfully arrested because it was assumed that he and his fellow demolitionists made a bomb that struck Thesz. After escaping, he was unable to find legitimate work and thus became a bomb-maker for the dwarvish mob.

* ''Fanfic/{{Dermabrasion}}'': Dabi relays to Hawks a story about a SingleMomStripper who was arrested on false charges for drug trafficking for a gang. She was innocent - and a legal sex worker - but after the police tricked her into a FalseConfession they sent her to prison. Desparate, she took advantage of a villain break out to escape prison, kidnapped her children from foster care, and ended up actually trafficking drugs for that gang, all because she had absolutely no faith in the system anymore.

* In ''Film/MurderInTheFirst'', a lawyer defends a convict accused of murdering a fellow convict, using the trope to try to get the charge reduced to involuntary manslaughter. [[spoiler: They succeed.]]

--> '''Dunn''': When I went to prison, I was innocent. When I came out, I wasn't so innocent no more.

** The ruined reputation version happens in "Carbon Copy." The killer [[spoiler: but NOT the Replicator]] was wrongly arrested for the original case being copied. After his identity was leaked to the press, he was unable to clear his name. When he was caught, he declared that these deaths were the fault of the B.A.U., not him.

** This is the message of the episode "Making A Rapist". A man wrongly convicted of rape is released after serving sixteen years in prison. After making friends with the woman formerly believed to be his victim, he's accused of her daughter's rape and murder. [[spoiler: It turns out he did do it, after years of rape and beatings by fellow prisoners. He became attracted to her daughter, then when she laughed him off, he (while drunk) flew into a rage.]] This episode is based on the case of Steven Avery, a man who was wrongly convicted of rape and attempted murder charges in 1985. After being exonerated in 2003, he was then arrested for murder in another case and convicted. Though he maintains he's innocent, the documentary on his case is named ''Making A Murderer'', implying the producers feel the same way (assuming he really did it).

--> '''Earl''': The next two years were going to be hard, but now I knew I couldn't survive them by doing the same thing Glenn had; let prison turn me into someone I didn't recognize. I realized no matter how scared I get, if I'm going to survive in prison, I have to do it as myself. Cause my name isn't inmate number 28301-016. My Name is Earl.

--> '''Lillian Marx''': [[SarcasmMode It's weird -- it's almost like prison puts you in a criminal mindset, as if spending all day and all night living with and talking to other criminals, completely immersed in their lifestyle and morals and way of thinking, makes you start to act like them.]]

* ''ComicBook/RobinSeries'': Tim notes that Riot Act was always relatively harmless in comparison to Gotham's usual villains before he spent some time at Arkham during a prison transfer and was given some inspiration by the Joker.

->"''On the outside, I was an honest man, straight as an arrow. I had to come to prison to be a crook.''"

* Creator/DannyTrejo inverted this trope. After several stints in jail for drugs and armed robbery, he began working as a drug counsellor for at-risk youth. During a visit to the set of ''Film/RunawayTrain'', he was recognized by the screenwriter, whom he had done time with, was offered the chance to train the actors, and was ultimately cast as the BigBad. 250 film and TV credits later and he still hasn't stopped acting.

* Colombian serial killer [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_L%C3%B3pez_(serial_killer) Pedro López]] started as a petty thief but graduated to murder after [[PrisonRape getting raped in jail]].

** Creator/DannyTrejo also inverted this trope. After several stints in jail for drugs and armed robbery, he began working as a drug counselor. During a visit to the set of ''Film/RunawayTrain'', he was recognized by the screenwriter, whom he had done time with, and was offered the chance to train the actors and ultimately cast as the BigBad. 250 film and TV credits later and he still hasn't stopped acting.
* The self-confessed SerialKiller Carl Panzram (hanged 1930) stated that he had been driven to become brutal and loathe humanity in general over his horrific treatment inside various prisons (starting with a reform school while a juvenile). Keeping with common practice in that era, this included [[ATasteOfTheLash flogging]], [[ElectricTorture electrocution]] and [[GoMadFromTheIsolation long periods of isolation]]. He would escape on multiple occasions, committing thousands of robberies, burglaries, rapes and 21 murders. The one guard who showed him kindness, Henry Lesser, encouraged him to write an autobiography in which he confessed his misdeeds (not all of them were verified, though many murders have been). Panzram bitterly said that "the only way to reform a man is to kill him" after this prison experience, and fantasized about genocide against humanity as part of the nihilistic philosophy which he developed. He was hanged for the murder of a prison employee in Leavenworth, [[DeathSeeker going to his death with eagerness]]. Panzram stated that if people wanted to reform prisoners, this was definitely ''not'' how it was done, and they would produce many more criminals like him if things didn't change. Panzram started with petty thefts and graduated to serial murders over time.

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-->'''Spenser:''' Lot of guys like him in the joint. Sometimes, I suppose, it’s the joint makes them like that. Sometimes being like that gets them into the joint in the first place.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' episode "Dial Meg for Murder", [[ButtMonkey Meg]] falls in love with a convict and goes to jail for harboring him after he escapes. When she comes out, she is a lot meaner and starts fighting back against everyone who mistreated her. By the end of the episode, Brian has to stop her from [[JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope robbing a convenience store at gunpoint]].