Being that prisons are full of criminals it's not too much of a stretch to imagine those that work who developing some of those unsavoury tendencies themselves. There's plenty of stories of this occurring all over the world and Prison Break's writers decided to run with the idea, making practically every guard in Fox River Penitentiary dangerously corrupt. It was taken to this extreme to justify Michael Scofield's attempts to free his brother Lincoln Burrows without glorifying prison escapes. The guards stole from, attacked and were generally awful to everyone they encountered and this power is what made them miss the blindingly obvious escape that was being planned right in front of them. With them being so oblivious to everything going on, Scofield is able to wander in and out of his cell pretty much at will through a hole in the wall. Stuffing some pillows under the sheets to fool people into thinking you're sleeping might be appropriate in a comedy, but somehow it actually works in this, a maximum security penitentiary. Series One of Prison Break sees Scofield escape after a mere month of incarceration, soundly beating Andy Dufresne from The Shawshank Redemption's plan by 18 years and proving how ridiculously inept the guards at Fox River really were. He didn't even have to crawl through a river of sh*t, for god's sake.
A pop culture mad writer from the North East who loves films, television and debating them with whoever will listen.
Follow me on Twitter @Johno_Patterson
