History Main / MightAsWellNotBeInPrisonAtAll

* ''LightNovel/PrisonLifeIsEasyForAVillainess'': Rachel, a young noble woman is accused of crimes she has never done, by her own fiance the prince, and now her engagement is broken and she is sent to a cell in the castle dungeon. All exactly as she expected. Much to the prince's dismay, Rachel has already transported all of her daily needs into the cell beforehand, and she treats her imprisonment more like a leisurely holiday. A more comedic take on the RebornAsVillainessStory, as the focus is Rachel's outrageous behaviors and the prince's comedic failures in harassing her.

** Foe Warren White, aka the Great White Shark, runs a profitable criminal empire (mostly catering to fellow members of Batman's RoguesGallery) from inside Arkham Asylum. White was originally just a white-collar criminal who very stupidly used the InsanityDefense to avoid going to prison for committing the biggest fraud in U.S history -- the judge chose to send him to Arkham, which was a hundred times worse. White only became a psychotic crime boss ''after'' he was sent to Arkham and endured all the abuse and trauma and mutilation that came with it (with half the staff turning blind eye since White's crime touched them too) -- he didn't even ''have'' a criminal empire before he went in!

** In the Italian-American mafia, the heads of crime families stay in power until they either retire or die. As such, mob bosses who are sent to prison often set up acting bosses to whom they relay orders and who run the family on their behalf while they serve their sentences. Possibly the crowning example of this is Carmine "the Snake" Persico, who was boss of the Colombo family for nearly 50 years, most of which was spent behind bars. When first sent to prison, his initial choice of replacement was his son Alphonse (aka "Little Allie Boy"), but as he was also serving a prison sentence of his own, Persico put his underboss Vic Orena in charge as acting boss until Alphonse got out; this led to a MobWar when Orena tried to usurp control of the family from the Persicos, which only ended when he went to jail himself. After this, Persico understandably didn't trust anyone outside blood family anymore, so when Alphonse was sent back to jail for a longer sentence, Persico decided to forego an acting boss and just led the family personally from jail until his death in 2019.

* In ''Film/NoTimeToDie'', Ernst Stavro Blofeld has managed to run Spectre from his cell in the high-security prison of Belmarsh (where he was put after his arrest at the end of ''Film/{{Spectre}}'') using his {{electronic eye|s}}, ruining Film/JamesBond's relationship with Madeleine Swann in Italy for five years and organizing his own special birthday party in Cuba among other things.

* ''VideoGame/SpiderManPS4'' has Kingpin arrested at the end of the very first mission, but it's eventually revealed that he's still able to communicate with his men on the outside and have them continue his operations.

* ''Film/TheItalianJob1969'': Mr. Bridger, to the point that his reaction when Charlie breaks in to talk to him is to complain huffily to the governor about the lapse in security.

* ''[[LightNovel/TheVillianessSlowPrisonLifeBeganWithHerBrokenEngagement The Villainess' Slow Prison Life Began with Her Broken Engagement]]'': Rachel, a young noble woman is accused of crimes she has never done, by her own fiance the prince, and now her engagement is broken and she is sent to a cell in the castle dungeon. All exactly as she expected. Much to the prince's dismay, Rachel has already transported all of her daily needs into the cell beforehand, and she treats her imprisonment more like a leisurely holiday. A more comedic take on the RebornAsVillainessStory, as the focus is Rachel's outrageous behaviors and the prince's comedic failures in harassing her.

-->-- '''Bruno Bucciarati''' (in regards to Polpo, a mafia ''caporegime''), ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure: [[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureVentoAureo Vento Aureo]]''

* Polpo, the high-ranking mafia operative from ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureVentoAureo'', stays in his cell for a couple of reasons. Partly, it's because he can still give orders to his men, he can get anything he wants in his LuxuryPrisonSuite and his [[FightingSpirit Stand]], Music/BlackSabbath, is automatic and has nearly infinite range, so it can be summoned to pursue his enemies while he stays comfortably in his prison cell. However, the main reason for Polpo staying in prison is because [[FatBastard he's so massive]] [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome that getting him out would be a pain]].

* ''[[LightNovel/TheVillianessSlowPrisonLifeBeganWithHerBrokenEngagement The Villainess' Slow Prison Life Began with Her Broken Engagement]]'': Rachel, a young noble woman is accused of crimes she has never done, by her own fiance the prince, and now her engagement is broken and she is sent to a cell in the castle dungeon. All exactly as she expected. Much to the prince's dismay, Rachel has already transported all of her daily needs into the cell beforehand, and she treats her imprisonment more like a leisurely holiday. A more comedic take on the story, as the focus is Rachel's outrageous behaviors and the prince's comedic failures in harassing her.

* ''LightNovel/TheVillianessSlowPrisonLifeBeganWithHerBrokenEngagement'': Rachel, a young noble woman is accused of crimes she has never done, by her own fiance the prince, and now her engagement is broken and she is sent to a cell in the castle dungeon. All exactly as she expected. Much to the prince's dismay, Rachel has already transported all of her daily needs into the cell beforehand, and she treats her imprisonment more like a leisurely holiday. A more comedic take on the story, as the focus is Rachel's outrageous behaviors and the prince's comedic failures in harassing her.

* ''Comicbook/{{Daredevil}}'' villain [[spoiler:Mr. Fear at the end of the Hell to Pay storyline]]. In addition to the above-mentioned Kingpin. Hell, most of Daredevil's higher tier villains...

* In ''Film/NoTimeToDie'', Ernst Stavro Blofeld has managed to run Spectre from his cell in the high security prison of Belmarsh (where he was put after his arrest at the end of ''Film/{{Spectre}}'') using his {{electronic eye|s}}, ruining Film/JamesBond's relationship with Madeleine Swann in Italy for five years and organizing his own special birthday party in Cuba among other things.

* ''Literature/HelpIAmBeingHeldPrisoner'': Obviously, the tunnel that everyone goes in and out of at will serves to this affect for the prisoners to sneak out to pull off crimes or just enjoy freedom.

* In the mini-series ''Red Fox'' (based on the novel by Gerald Seymour), a terrorist orders an assassination from her prison cell via a lawyer, despite their entire conversation being videotaped. As they're speaking in TroubleEntendre, no-one understands what is really being said until after attack.

* ''Series/{{Hightown}}'': Frankie Sr. Guards allow him time to use contraband cellphones to order hits, to meet with drug dealers and have sex with Renee all in private rooms that they are guarding.

* In ''TabletopGame/{{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. Some players enact HouseRules for this reason that rent on a jailed player's property is either free or goes towards that other popular House Rule, the "Free Parking" kitty.
* A rare heroic version in ''TabletopGame/PrincessTheHopeful'': when [[BigGood Radiant Queens]] and their Courts were defeated by minions of the Darkness centuries ago, the latter tried to bypass their BornAgainImmortality by [[SealedGoodInACan trapping their souls]] in the Dreamlands, a LotusEaterMachine realm where supernatural Wardens would use illusions to fool them into thinking they were still being active while the real world was being corrupted. This worked for centuries (long enough to make Earth a CrapsackWorld), but backfired spectacularly when the Queens ''did'' realize what was going on, as they [[CurbStompBattle promptly defeated the Wardens]] and took over a huge portion of the Dreamlands, essentially turning it into ''their'' home realm. Nowadays, they stay here by choice, as reincarnating would weaken them by forcing them to start back as Princesses- while staying allows them to support their Courts, who ''do'' reincarnate to take back the real world. And, because the Darkness doesn't have any mean to travel to the Dreamlands, the Queens are now out of their reach.

* ''VideoGame/Bioshock2'': The prequel novel ''Literature/BioshockRapture'' shows that Sofia Lamb was prepared for the possibility that Andrew Ryan would have declared her enough of a political and ideological threat to have her arrested for dissent, deeming it a necessary risk in the pursuit of a compassionate, unified Rapture. Once she was jailed, the warden, a "miserable" man became a member of her group; she later tells Simon Wales that he basically asked questions about himself during her interrogation, as if he wanted her to psychoanalyze and console his apparent pain. She spent her time strengthening her movement from the inside and biding time for a jailbreak that would not only release her, but all of the other prisoners as well, several of whom were on her side, whose overwhelming numbers would then overpower the guards and ensure that the prison was effectively hers. That time came when her anxiety about the wellbeing of her daughter Eleanor reached a point where it was unbearable, since she had little way of making sure that whoever was taking care of her wasn't plying her with authoritarian propaganda.

** According to WOLA (the Washington Office on Latin America), this is commonplace in corrupt Mexican prisons where drug cartel bosses often continue their business dealings in relative safety. Likewise in Brazil, where imprisoned gang leaders from the favelas of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro have the money and influence to run their operations from inside, and establish quite lavish conditions for themselves.
** [[https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernandinho_Beira-Mar Fernandinho Beira-Mar]] is the leader of the Brazilian criminal organization Red Command, who's been in prison since 2002 but still keeps his position as the leader to this day and gives orders to his peers through a scheme of notes, and he still had to face trial for crimes he commited inside prison which greatly extended his sentence, which is [[LongerThanLifeSentence currently 309 years and 2 months]].

Often combines with a LuxuryPrisonSuite in the worst cases. Compare LeakingCanOfEvil for similar effects with supernatural evils.

* [[CrisisCrossover Pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths]] ComicBook/LexLuthor regularly ran his criminal enterprises from the inside of his prison cell. Of course, it was basically understood, if not ever explicitly admitted, that Luthor was in prison only as long as Luthor wanted to be in prison. Post-Crisis, that is still true, but this time he'll usually just [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney wait for his lawyers to get him out instead.]]

* In ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamAsylum'', 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 AxCrazy KnightTemplar Warden-, and using a SecretIdentity agreed to fund her project with his secret stash of millions of dollars. He later escapes solely to trap Batman inside while Harley 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.]]

* In the very first episode of ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice'' the villains Captain Cold, Icicle Jr., Killer Frost, and Mister Freeze are captured by different heroes and their sidekicks in separate incidents but on the same day. Batman doubts that this was a coincidence, and thought they all went down too easily, but they are all carted off to Belle Reve prison. A few episodes later, it turned out Icicle Sr., who was already in Belle Reve, arranged the whole thing and wanted them to get caught so they could help him and the other incarcerated villains stage a mass breakout, but this is foiled. [[spoiler:Then in TheStinger, it was revealed the whole thing was an EvilPlan orchestrated by [[BigBad The Light]] to get Warden Amanda Waller fired and replaced by their man Hugo Strange, the prison psychiatrist, so that they control the prison. Over the rest of the season, various prisoners such as MadScientist Professor Ivo are secretly broken out of and returned to their cells, or simply asked for advice in other crimes, in order to help out the Light with their various criminal schemes, and they all seem comfortable there knowing that they secretly run the place and can leave when needed. By the penultimate episode, Batman has the proof he needs to shut the operation down, but if the matter is resolved it happens off-screen as we are never shown it. Neither Belle Reve, Strange or any of the prisoners have shown up in season 2 yet as of the mid-season summer break.]]

* Happens a lot in ''Series/{{Oz}}:

* In ''Film/TheCriminal'', Frank Saffrion is regarded as the king of Cellblock A. He is in touch with various criminal bigwigs on the outside and is able to obtain almost any kind of contraband--for a price. Late in the movie, he orchestrates a PrisonRiot, a transfer for Johnny, and for [[VulnerableConvoy the prison van to ambushed while it is on the road]].

* There are, unfortunately, a number of Real Life examples of this; mafia-dons and drug kingpins who continue to run their organization with unabated effect while behind bars, often through crooked lawyers who can pass on orders under the cover of "Client Confidentiality", or "bought" cops who can turn a deaf ear.

** 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. Likewise in Brazil, where imprisoned gang leaders from the favelas of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro have the money and influence to run their operations from inside, and establish quite lavish conditions for themselves.
** [[https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernandinho_Beira-Mar Fernandinho Beira-Mar]] is the leader of the Brazilian criminal organization Red Command, he is in prison since 2002 but still keeps his position as the leader to this day and gives orders to his peers through a scheme of notes, and he still had to face trial for crimes he commited inside prison which greatly extended his sentence, which is [[LongerThanLifeSentence is currently 309 years and 2 months]].
** Explicitly {{Defied}} in Italy with the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_41-bis_prison_regime 41-bis prison regime]]: a convict sentenced to this suffers from various communications bans intended to cut him off from contact with his former criminal associates. This was originally devised to deal with terrorists, but was later extended to Mafia members, members of child pornography/prostitution rings, kidnappers for ransom or robbery, slavers, human traffickers, gang rapists, drug traffickers [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and cigarette smugglers]].

** When [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Epstein Jeffrey Epstein]] was sentenced to prison in 2008, his time in prison was almost farcical. He was allowed to freely leave during the day on "work release" six days a week and went about his business as usual, only going back to jail to sleep at night. When his imprisonment was changed to house arrest, he was allowed to fly back and forth from Florida to New York in his private jet and got to go on shopping trips and wander around Palm Beach for "exercise". This backfired on him as he was given such a sweetheart deal from one Prosecutor that the agreement didn't prevent [[LoopholeAbuse literally any other Federal Prosecutor from charging him again with the charges that were dropped]].

* General Malet plotted his coup d'état of 1812 from his prison cell; the security was so relaxed that he and his accomplice Lafon managed to set up a "recruiting bureau" of sorts without drawing any attention. [[note]]Of course, concealing the conspiracy was made easier by the fact that Malet and Lafon kept all their recruits in the dark about the true extent of their plans.[[/note]]
* The Aryan Brotherhood's leaders, despite all serving multiple life sentences and held in the ADX Supermax (the most secure US prison that exists) while kept on lockdown 23 hours per day inside their solitary cells, ''still'' run the gang from there. In fact, they were discovered to be ordering hits by making invisible ink to write out messages between lines using letters they sent out.
* The country of Venezuela has an ongoing massive problem with prisons, such as [[https://www.visapourlimage.com/en/festival/exhibitions/de-l-autre-cote-du-mur-d-enceinte-une-prison-du-venezuela-aux-mains-des-detenus Vista Hermosa]] or [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maracaibo_National_Prison_(Sabaneta_Prison)#:~:text=The%20prison%20was%20run%20by,far%20exceeded%20its%20intended%20population Maracaibo National Prison]], literally being run by the inmates as organized crime groups/"pranatos"/"pran" are running a criminal system out of prisons and taking advantage of overcrowding prison populations and lack of security personnel to bolster their influence. Approximately 80% of Venezuelan prisons are run by their prisoners. Some prisons even established a tax system where prisoners paid taxes to the pran each week. Failure to do so resulted in beatings or death and prisoners could even pay more to the pran for a nicer cell or a flat-screen TV.

* ''VideoGame/Bioshock2'': The prequel novel ''Literature/BioshockRapture'' shows that Sofia Lamb was prepared for the possibility that Andrew Ryan would have declared her enough of a political and ideological threat to have her arrested for dissent, deeming it a necessary risk in the pursuit of a compassionate, unified Rapture. Once she was jailed, the warden, a "miserable" manm became a member of her group; she later tells Simon Wales that he basically asked questions about himself during her interrogation, as if he wanted her to psychoanalyze and console his apparent pain. She spent her time strengthening her movement from the inside and biding time for a jailbreak that would not only release her, but all of the other prisoners as well, several of whom were on her side, whose overwhelming numbers would then overpower the guards and ensure that the prison was effectively hers. That time came when her anxiety about the wellbeing of her daughter Eleanor reached a point where it was unbearable, since she had little way of making sure that whoever was taking care of her wasn't plying her with authoritarian propaganda.

* ''VideoGame/Bioshock2'': The prequel novel ''Literature/BioshockRapture'' shows that Sofia Lamb was prepared for the possibility that Andrew Ryan would have declared her enough of a political and ideological threat to have her arrested for dissent, deeming it a necessary risk in the pursuit of a compassionate, unified Rapture. Once she was jailed, the warden became a member of her group; she later tells Simon Wales that he basically asked questions about himself during her interrogation as if he wanted her to psychoanalyze him. She spent her time making plans for outside the prison via her followers and biding time for a jailbreak that would not only release her, but the rest of the prisoners, several of whom were on her side whose overwhelming numbers would then overpower the guards and ensure that the prison was effectively hers.

* ''VideoGame/{{BioShock 2}}'': [[spoiler:Sofia Lamb, First-Rate 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 DarkMessiah VillainWithGoodPublicity to expand The Rapture Family during the city's descent into madness. The fact that it ''wasn't'' a CardboardPrison made it the perfect place for a SupervillainLair: what's better than a tightly-guarded, easily-forgotten fortress full of potential {{Mooks}} to help her retake the city AfterTheEnd?]]

** When [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Epstein Jeffrey Epstein]] was sentenced to prison in 2008, his time in prison was almost farcical. He was allowed to freely leave during the day on "work release" six days a week and went about his business as usual, only going back to jail to sleep at night. When his imprisonment was changed to house arrest, he was allowed to fly back and forth from Florida to New York in his private jet and got to go on shopping trips and wander around Palm Beach for "exercise". This backfired on him as he was given such lenient terms in his sentence that a Federal Court ruled that not only did it violate due process for the victims of his crimes, but it negated the Double Jeopardy Clause.