History Main / BoxedCrook

** Note that in most cases, an Arbiter who manages to survive his SuicideMission is simply sent on more of them until he eventually actually dies on one, depending on the severity of the crisis he was made Arbiter for. In the case of ''Halo 2''[='=]s Arbiter, the Hierarchs have ordered Tartarus to kill him if this happens. Unfortunately, he survives (with help), kills Tartarus in a rematch, ultimately becomes the leader of what eventually becomes the Sword of Sanghelios, allies with humanity and kills the last Hierarch with his bare hands. Helps that this Elite happened to be one of the single most powerful and experienced of his kind, having been [[AsskickingEqualsAuthority the Supreme Commander of one of the largest Covenant armadas before his disgrace]].

* ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'': You are ordered to recruit Jack, the most powerful human biotic in the galaxy, who just happens to be homicidal, insane and in lockup on TheAlcatraz JustForFun/InSPACE. Unfortunately, the prison warden gets greedy and decides to capture you as well, forcing you to release Jack and every other prisoner in her block. She agrees to work for you in exchange for info on the people who experimented on her -- the same group you're forced to work for.
** In [[VideoGame/MassEffect3 the third game]], she appears to be fully reformed and is busy training young biotics on how to best use their abilities to help the Alliance. She comes up with the idea of "biotic artillery". She even stops dropping {{Cluster F Bomb}}s in her new role as a teacher, unless you tease her about it.

* Thomas Standish, aka "The Turtle," helps out Sam over the radio in ''VideoGame/SplinterCell: Chaos Theory'' when a mission is a bank robbery.
* A significant portion of the Terran military in ''VideoGame/StarCraft'' are convicts guilty of often-horrific crimes who were "resocialized" (read: basically [[{{Brainwashed}} mind-scrubbed]] and given artificial personalities) and sent into the military. Their new, excessively kind or chipper personae are often noted as ''quite'' unnerving to be around by other characters in books set in the 'verse.

*** [[spoiler:Subverted; nobody knows where the country went, but Melodias was simply too angry at the death of a DIFFERENT woman to focus on saving it from being teleported to "somewhere else". His real sin is constantly losing his mind to hate, as a direct result of watching his beloved die violently and respawn for the sole sadistic purpose of dying in front of Melodias... over... and over... and over...]]

** Merlin the Boar's Sin of Gluttony is for having one hell of a royal claim [[spoiler:Heaven or Hell, take your pick]] yet still demanding EVEN MORE TEST SUBJECTS.

* Best way to catch a hacker? Have someone who thinks like a hacker. Best way to have someone think like a hacker? Hire a former hacker. Happens to many criminals to help find a flaw he would look for in his employer's plan.
** On occasion, hackers have actually hacked their desired employer, as a sort of job interview. One that the employer didn't know about. It tends not to go so well; most so-called "hackers" who find a job this way are normally just professional web developers using nothing but the View Source function of their browser and perhaps an ordinary network traffic-analysis tool. Gaining access to confidential information this way is ''not'' going to make you popular, even if the only thing you do with it is email the company's tech support centre with a warning.
* Similarly to the above, very good cheaters have been hired by Las Vegas' casinos as security, trying to spot other cheaters.

* Some hunting estates were rumored to use former poachers as gamekeepers; some natural reserves actually use former poachers against other poachers.

** It should be noted that Moist's EvilCounterpart from ''Literature/GoingPostal'' was offered one at the end of the book. [[spoiler: He chose to take the door ensuring he would "never be bothered again." Literally, as he discovered, as the door hid a bottomless pit.]]

* In ''Film/{{Suicide Squad|2016}}'' [[Film/TheSuicideSquad it's 2021 sequel]] and the 2022 [[Series/Peacemaker2022 Peacemaker]] series, [[BadBoss Amanda]] [[BlackBossLady Waller]] assembles a group of supervillains to do the government's dirty work, or else she'll activate their ExplosiveLeash.

* Wiki/SCPFoundation:

* 2000 television show ''Series/TheInvisibleMan'' had a con released from prison by an intelligence agency so he could become a guinea pig and agent by undergoing surgery to give him a gland that made him invisible. In this case, the government didn't break him out for his skills; nepotism got him out, since his brother was the lead scientist of the project. It was only after his brother was murdered and the government realized that nobody else knew how to remove the gland and place it in somebody more suitable that he was drafted as a secret agent.

* ''VideoGame/BattlefieldBadCompany'' is a video game portraying a company made up of the men whose offenses within the US Army aren't serious enough for a court martial and as such are used as essentially cannon fodder.

* ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'': The Covenant's Arbiters a variation of this. They are selected from particularly badass Sangheili (Elites) who have somehow managed to disgrace themselves, and ''VideoGame/Halo2'' makes it quite clear that Arbiters are 100% expected to ''die'' either way. However, taking up the mantle allows the condemned Elite to regain his lost honor, and even cleanse himself of any status he may have as a heretic. ''WesternAnimation/HaloLegends'' reveals that the title was originally a highly honored leadership role among the Sangheili, but the San'shyuum (Prophets) changed its nature to one of dishonor to break remaining Sangheili resistance to the Covenant.

** In the third game, she appears to be fully reformed and is busy training young biotics on how to best use their abilities to help the Alliance. She comes up with the idea of "biotic artillery". She even stops dropping {{Cluster F Bomb}}s in her new role as a teacher, unless you tease her about it.

* ''VideoGame/RedAlert3''
** Soviet flak troopers are convicts serving as part of their sentence. They'll comment that the front lines beat being in the gulag.
** The Empire's Steel Ronin added in ''Uprising'' are actually soldiers spared the death sentence because of their ability as warriors and instead locked into battle suits.

** Your Qunari companion Sten slaughtered a family of farmers in a fit of rage ([[spoiler:he thought they took his sword]]) and was put in a cage to be killed by the Darkspawn when they arrived. If you don't convince him to join you and get him released, he will die (then again, you can't return to that location later, so it's difficult to say).

* ''VideoGame/{{Colonization}}'' has "Petty Criminals" as some of the more undesirable colonists, as they got hefty penalties for complex/indoors work. There is some room for Lumberjack, Miner and Fisherman/Farmer jobs, but this have any value only until you have experts. However, give them some rifles and convert them to militia! Or even better, dragoons (better chances, and a defeat costs only 50 horses). If they win a few battles, they don't advance in military experience, but become full-fledged colonists and actually useful around the town. Alternatively, work experience (for mining, farming, etc they are as good as free colonists) or education (if you don't mind a teacher just sitting in the schoolhouse and eating). Either way, you get an Indentured Servants (halved penalties), then Free Colonists, then experts. Pushing into congress William Brewster removes both penalized types from possible recruits forever.
** In ''[=FreeCol=]'' Petty Criminals can't get work experience or even learn from natives, so the lest wasteful way without fighting is schooling to Indentured Servants and then shipping to native village, which makes them experts right away.
* ''VideoGame/CompanyOfHeroes 2'' utilize Penal Battalion infantry squads for the Soviet Union, as can be seen under the Real Life folder in this page. Like regular mid-late-war Assault units Penal Battalion infantry are armed with semiautomatic SVT-40 rifles to make them more effective against infantry than basic Conscripts, may be upgraded to use a flamethrower to further their infantry effectiveness and add a lot more against buildings, and use a long-fused and expensive Satchel Charge ability which will dish out a lot of damage against buildings and most armored vehicles hit or simply obliterate all other things caught in the blast. However, unlike actual Assault units every man has his own SVT-40. The rifle was a specialist weapon typically reserved for sharpshooters and snipers, and wasn't usually issued to other troops until the mid-late war period.

May stem from YouAllMeetInACell. SubTrope of LeonineContract and RecruitingTheCriminal. A related trope is TradingBarsForStripes (your prison sentence is commuted to military service) and another is RecruitedFromTheGutter (working for someone who saved you from a crappy life). Compare CondemnedContestant, IndispensableScoundrel, TrappedInVillainy and WinYourFreedom.

* Accomplished with an additional sting on the tail in ''VideoGame/TheSecretWorld.'' In the Halloween mission "The Seven Silences," it's revealed that [[spoiler: Lorraine Maillard of ''VideoGame/ThePark'', after she turned herself in for infanticide when The Boogeyman stabbed her son using her hand]] was recruited by the Council of Venice as a test subject; over the course of her time at the lab, she was forcibly bonded with one of [[EnigmaticEmpoweringEntity the Bees]], granting her the same powers and immortality as the player characters - but she suffered drastic, painful side effects. The Council deploys her as a field agent, and constantly revokes her requests to quit or get medical assistance for her health complications because they're too bureaucratic and understaffed to retire a field agent whose performance is directly proportional to the amount of ''suffering'' she endures. She commits suicide, repeatedly, over the the next thirty years, [[spoiler: until she found a way to disable her immortality. And then you resurrect her. And ''then'' you kick her ass in a duel and send her back to work.]]

* In ''Literature/DamnationAlley'', the protagonist, [[AwesomeMcCoolName Hell Tanner]] is given a pardon for his substantial crimes if he will cross from the East Coast to the West Coast of North America to deliver a vaccine, the world having been wrecked and North America having become an impassible wasteland.

->''"If you accept, your sentence will be reduced after we drive off the hobgoblin horde. Or, you can refuse and pray their catapults don't hit the prison tower while you're still locked inside."''

Expect to see "insurance" deployed, such as an ExplosiveLeash.

* TruthInTelevision: each Red Army ''Front'' (up to 200,000 combat troops) and ''Army'' (up to 100,000 combat troops) was authorized to form one Penal Battalion (''Shtrafbaty'', up to 1000 combat troops) composed of disgraced soldiers. ''Front''-level ''Shtrafbaty'' were authorised to contain up to a company (up to 200 men) of former Officers and Non-Commissioned Officers. ''Army''-level ''Shtrafbaty'' could contain convicted criminals straight from TheGulag. People deported to internal exile as colonists in Siberia, and their children, were recruited into special combat divisions (of up to 10,000 men) instead and did not serve in ''Shtrafbaty''. Service in a ''Shtrafbaty'' only lasted up to 3 months, but the Red Army as a whole lost 100% of its prewar combat forces as dead or captured (capture meaning death due to starvation or overwork as slave labour) within the first four months of the war, lost a further 100% in the following year, and a final 100% in the remaining three years. Service in a mid-late war ''Shtrafbaty'' was survivable, though not necessarily likely, but service in an early-war ''Shtrafbaty'' was almost certainly not. That said, a handful of the more than 30,000 men who served in early-war units managed to survive the near-complete loss of their entire company (up to 200 men) up to three times and earn their freedom... to serve in regular Red Army units, where survival was still far from guaranteed but actually a realistic possibility.
* On the opposite side was the Dirlewanger Brigade, a unit of former criminals used for anti-partisan warfare whose conduct was so brutal even SS commanders wanted it disbanded. Originally only consisting of poachers who had useful stalking and woodcraft skills, eventually more serious crimes and even the criminally insane were allowed to join. The regular army also had the ''Strafbattalions'', consisting of both court-martialed soldiers and civilian criminals.
* When General Orde Wingate told Field Marshal Slim of his idea for a Special Forces Unit to harrass the Japanese in the rear, Slim turned him down because he found the whole idea "unbritish"; Wingate then told Churchill of his idea; Churchill liked it so much he gave him carte blanche to do as he liked; Wingate immediately recruited every soldier being held in Deolali Military prison in India for his new unit; and so the famous "Chindits" were created. Field Marshal Slim later wrote in his memoirs that "at least Wingate managed to take all the psychopaths in my command out of my hands".

** Special mention must go to D-14134, mentioned in [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1983 SCP-1983]]. SCP-1983 was an anomalous abandoned house of TheHeartless, aggressive shadow creatures that ripped the hearts out of the living and could only be killed by silver bullets. D-14134 was sent in on a tether with a camera to scout it after the loss of an entire recon team inside, but the tether snapped and he was lost. Several hours later, SCP-1983 vanished, leaving the scout team's desiccated remains and an informal SCP report written by an agent in the anomaly. It is believed that D-14134, in the manner of some BadassNormal video game character, found the notes and ''[[DyingMomentOfAwesome fought his way through the house and somehow destroyed their nest]]''. D-14134 was posthumously awarded the Foundation Star for his actions.

* ''Series/Batwoman2019'': In Season 3, [[OverarchingVillain Alice]] is recruited from Arkham to help Team Batwoman to track down all the [[LegacyCharacter new villains who are acquiring the old Rogues' weapons]].

* ''ComicBook/HuntersHellcats'': At the outbreak of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, homicide detective Ben Hunter was drafted and sent overseas. Promoted to Sergeant, he was asked to oversee a special commando force comprised entirely of criminals culled from the Army stockade. The series was very similar in premise to ''Series/GarrisonsGorillas''.

* ''ComicBook/HuntersHellcats'': At the outbreak of WWII, homicide detective Ben Hunter was drafted and sent overseas. Promoted to Sergeant, he was asked to oversee a special commando force comprised entirely of criminals culled from the Army stockade. The series was very similar in premise to ''Series/GarrisonsGorillas''.

* The TV series ''Series/GarrisonsGorillas'' chronicled the adventures of a group of convicts recruited into the U.S. Army by the offer of a post-war parole. Commanded by West Point graduate, Lt. Garrison, the "Gorillas" functioned as commandos behind Nazi lines.

* In ''Film/{{Suicide Squad|2016}}'' and [[Film/TheSuicideSquad it's 2021 sequel]], [[BadBoss Amanda]] [[BlackBossLady Waller]] assembles a group of supervillains to do the government's dirty work, or else she'll activate their ExplosiveLeash.

* The Nick Spencer run of ''ComicBook/AntMan'' uses a humorous but semi-realistic version of this to explain why [[NinjaPirateRobotZombie gay android supervillain]] Machinesmith is [[OnlyinFlorida working a dead end job in Miami]]. Machinesmith was offered parole in exchange for using his skills to help SHIELD hack into Latverian computers. After doing so, he was released and sent to Florida and has to report regularly to a parole officer. Scott Lang (Ant Man) [[RecruitingTheCriminal offers him a job at his new security company]], which Machinesmith accepts since it was an improvement over his previous one (being beaten up by kids at Avengers-themed birthday parties).

** Astra Militarum penal legions, most notably Colonel Schafer's Last Chancers[[note]]basically The Dirty Dozen [[RecycledInSpace IN SPACE!]][[/note]] are recruited from prison planets and Guardsmen of other regiments who have fallen foul of the Imperium's many strict laws. These units are typically given the most dangerous of assignments and are not expected to survive the conflict.

* ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'': The Covenant's Arbiters a variation of this. They are selected from particularly badass Sangheili (Elites) who have somehow managed to disgrace themselves, and ''VideoGame/{{Halo 2}}'' makes it quite clear that Arbiters are 100% expected to ''die'' either way. However, taking up the mantle allows the condemned Elite to regain his lost honor, and even cleanse himself of any status he may have as a heretic. ''WesternAnimation/HaloLegends'' reveals that the title was originally a highly honored leadership role among the Sangheili, but the San'shyuum (Prophets) changed its nature to one of dishonor to break remaining Sangheili resistance to the Covenant.

* ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'': You are ordered to recruit Jack, the most powerful human biotic in the galaxy, who just happens to be homicidal, insane and in lockup on TheAlcatraz InSPACE. Unfortunately, the prison warden gets greedy and decides to capture you as well, forcing you to release Jack and every other prisoner in her block. She agrees to work for you in exchange for info on the people who experimented on her -- the same group you're forced to work for.

[[folder:Web Comics]]