"I'm breakin' rocks in the hot sun
I fought the law, and the law won.
I fought the law, and the law won.
I needed money 'cause I had none.
I fought the law, and the law won."
I fought the law, and the law won.
I fought the law, and the law won.
I needed money 'cause I had none.
I fought the law, and the law won."
— The Bobby Fuller Four, "I Fought the Law"
The jail. The nick. The cooler. The joint. The slammer. You get the gist.
If a show is set in Prison, the wardens and/or guards usually contain at least one Drill Sergeant Nasty, and there is a prevalence of gang violence, drug abuse, and Prison Rape. Due to the need to present the setting as extremely violent, dangerous and chaotic, shows set primarily in prison, such as Oz, will frequently use Red Shirt characters.
See Prison Tropes and Crime and Punishment Tropes for tropes that frequently come into play in stories featuring prisons.
Prison as the main setting:
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Anime and Manga
Comic Books
- Bitch Planet is another science fiction version.
- HARD Time...
- "Harry 20 on the High Rock" in 2000 AD
- Prison Pit
Film
- The Big House
- Birdman of Alcatraz
- Brubaker
- Cool Hand Luke
- Destroyer (1988)
- Escape from Alcatraz
- Fortress (1992)
- The Green Mile
- Jailbait (2014)
- The Last Castle
- Let's Go to Prison
- Lock Up
- The Longest Yard
- The Mustang
- Pardon Us — Laurel and Hardy in a loose comic remake of The Big House
- Prison (1988)
- Reform School Girls
- The Shawshank Redemption
- Skidoo
- Toy Story 3
Literature
- Time Spike by Eric Flint and Marilyn Kosmatka, which is loosely connected with his Ring of Fire series. A modern American maximum-security prison, as well as several other groups, are moved back in time to the Cretaceous Era.
Live-Action TV
- Alcatraz, with the flashback half of the show being set in the eponymous prison.
- Bad Girls
- Capadocia
- Colditz
- Dead Boss
- Hogan's Heroes
- Locked Up
- Orange Is the New Black
- Oz
- Porridge which ran considerably against type, being a sitcom with relatively little violence. Episodes focusing instead on surviving institutional life, characters and friendship.
- Prison Break
- Prisoner: Cell Block H
- The Slammer
- Tenko
- Wentworth
- Within These Walls
- Women In Prison
Video Games
- Diacrisis is set in Excillar Supermax Security Penitentiary, which houses murderers, mob bosses, and the like.
- The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay is based on escaping a prison.
- Sanitarium is a game based on escaping from a loony bin.
- The Suffering is a third-person shooter that takes place on a prison that gets attacked by monsters.
- Half-Life 2 has you breaking into a high security prison, Nova Prospekt. To do this you have to storm a fortified beachfront, run past several machine gunners, scale a steep cliff face and shoot down a pair of gunships just to make it inside. According to another character, this is easier than breaking out. Once inside, the largely empty Nova Prospekt turns out to be pretty eerie. The Riot Act mod is about a prisoner breaking out of Nova Prospekt during the break-in.
- Batman: Arkham Asylum: The entire game is set in the titular insane asylum/prison. Fortunately, it's varied enough to be entertaining the whole way through.
- Prison Architect puts you in charge of building and maintaining your own private prison for profit. You can make a humane prison that takes care of the inmates' wellbeing and works on rehabilitating them. Or you can make a Hell Hole Prison.
- The Escapists and The Escapists 2 mostly take place in prisons.
- Take No Prisoners takes place in a Penal Colony called the Bradley Correctional Institute, where the inmates have been converted into mindless mutants. You'll need to infiltrate the facility and get out alive.
Visual Novels
- Lucky Dog 1 until the main cast breaks out.
Web Animation
- Operation Liberty is a Spanish adult animated series where 14 prisoners from around the world fight for the chance to have their freedom again.
Webcomics
- The Lydian Option is a sci-fi comic set on an asteroid prison run by a species that incarcerates criminals for every offense, no matter how minor.
- Last Res0rt features a deadly reality show with prisoners (and a few volunteers) as the contestants, taking place on a space station that provides (among other things) the prison complex the players are being held in.
Web Original
- Survival of the Fittest version three has a jailhouse/prison/military stockade as one of the locations, frequently used as shelter by the students. So far it's one of the least bloody locations on the island, with only one person having died there. V3 characters Brad Kavanagh and Eduardo Trinidad-Villa are also mentioned as having spent time in juvenile hall, Brad on (false) murder charges, and Eduardo on assault charges. Brad was released when the real killer came forward and his case was overturned, but Eduardo served his entire sentence.
Western Animation
Prison is frequently used as a set:
Anime and Manga
- One Piece (Impel Down arc.)
- [[Anime/Usavich Usavich]] (first season)
Comic Books
- Batman: Often has villains interned in Arkham Asylum, Gotham City's prison and Bedlam House.
- In All Fall Down, IQ Squared and Pronto end up here at the finish.
- The Punisher is mostly set in New York, but Frank often arranges for himself to be sent to prison (sometimes as simply as walking into the nearest police station and turning himself in) so as to kill a criminal who's otherwise untouchable (and Might As Well Not Be In Prison at all), killing convicts that come to him seeking revenge and usually escaping offscreen at the end. Punisher The Cell chronicles one such foray, while Punisher The End states that Frank had to be permanently locked up in solitary because he wouldn't stop killing fellow convicts ("feeding meat to a tiger" was the phrase used by the judge).
- In one Daredevil story, Murdoch is sent to maximum-security prison. Frank turns himself in to get sent to the same prison, then once Murdoch's done what he had to do, Frank escapes by taking Murdoch "hostage".
- The Outside Circle: Pete is first sent to Edmonton Maximum Security Prison, and then transferred to Drumheller Medium Prison so he can take part in the "In Search Of Your Inner Warrior" Program.
- Suicide Squad. The Squad is based in a prison when not out on missions.
Literature
- Multiple books by Jodi Picoult, including The Pact, Vanishing Acts, and Change of Heart.
Live-Action TV
- Arrested Development
- Breakout Kings
- Law & Order and the derivatives
- My Name Is Earl (season three)
- Red Dwarf (series eight)
- The Shield (season four)
- The Sopranos (season six, minor appeareances in the rest)
- The Wire (season two, more briefly in season three and still more briefly in season 4)