Fox River State Penitentiary
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Wardens
Pope
Warden Henry Pope
"Son, it's better for me to owe you one in here than for you to owe me one, I can promise you that."
Played By: Stacy Keach
"When those men went over that wall, they made a choice. That choice makes them a threat to society once again."
The dedicated warden of Fox River State Penitentiary.
- Being Good Sucks: Pope is one of the most morally upright characters in the entire series; he's dedicated to rehabilitation and acts as something of a mentor figure to Michael Scofield during his stay. Michael rewards his generosity by using him for his escape plan, holding him at gunpoint and leaving him tied up in his office. Pope ultimately loses his job because of his trusting nature.
- Beware the Nice Ones: He might be a good man, but piss him off and you will feel the consequences.
- Big Good
- Bound and Gagged: By Michael when they break out of Fox River.
- Butt-Monkey: At the end of Season 1 and beginning of Season 2. Michael has put together an escape plan right under his nose, he gets locked in his own office closet to make sure he can't warn anybody, fails to recapture the prisoners, and resigns out of disgust when the mismanagement of Fox River comes to light.
- The Bus Came Back: Halfway through Season 2, Michael and Sara request his assistance in finding the recording Frank Tancredi left behind.
- Cool Old Guy: He's played by Stacy Keach, so this is a given.
- Et Tu, Brute?: He takes it very personally when Michael repays his kindness by holding him at knifepoint and tying him up.
- A Father to His Men: Pope considers the staff of Fox River to be his responsibility as much as the inmates, and holds a fatherly affection for both Michael and Bellick.
- Happily Married: Despite his earlier infidelity, he still has a very loving relationship with his wife. He asks Michael to help him build a miniature Taj Mahal as a gift to his wife for their anniversary.
- Put on a Bus: After the Fox River 8 escape, Pope retires in disgrace. He's only seen twice more in the Season 2 before disappearing completely.
- Wardens Are Evil: Averted. Pope is a very affable man who genuinely cares about every staff member and inmate in Fox River. He's a believer in rehabilitation, not punishment.
Pavelka
Warden Ed Pavelka
Played By: Brandon Smith
The Warden at the prison after Pope quit after the Fox River Eight escaped.
- Tyrant Takes the Helm: He adopts a very tough stance, showing no mercy whatsoever for the inmates under his care.
Correctional Officers
Patterson
Louis Patterson
Played By: Phillip Edward Van Lear
A correctional officer at Fox River, and is usually seen with C.O. Stolte.
- Bad Cop/Incompetent Cop: He's not a bad person, but he doesn't always pay attention to his work and gets easily distracted by the secretary.
- Distracted by the Sexy: He's so busy with carrying on an affair with Pope's secretary that he fails to even suspect the hole being dug in the shed.
Andrews
Mack Andrews
Played By: Mac Brandt
A correctional officer at Fox River.
- Bad Cop/Incompetent Cop: Has a few moments, in that he drops his keys during the riot, allowing T-Bag access to the rest of the prison, and later is shown drinking while on duty.
- Failed a Spot Check: Doesn't notice Michael wearing a guard's uniform, as he's sneaking into a hallway to drink on the job.
Stolte
Keith Stolte
Played By: Christian Stolte
A correctional officer at Fox River. He likes to talk about sports with C.O. Patterson and has a teen aged son called Josh.
- The Dragon: The closest thing Bellick has to one.
- Pet the Dog: He has a couple moments, making it clear he's leaning into a Reasonable Authority Figure and is never seen abusing his power with the inmates. He warns an incarcerated Bellick of an upcoming attack by fellow prisoners. Earlier, when Lincoln is being prepped for his execution (head shaving, etc.) he orders the guards with him to stand down, then respectfully and quietly asks Lincoln to please cooperate, as it'll be easier on everyone. Lincoln agrees and doesn't give them any trouble.
- Lincoln: You've always been square with me, boss.
- Satellite Character: To Louis, who's already quite a Flat Character himself.
Geary
Roy Geary
Played By: Matt DeCaro
A correctional officer at Fox River. He is known for corruption and inmate abuse.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: When T-Bag finally catches up to him, he begs for his life and offers to split the (stolen) money 50-50 with him. It doesn't work.
- Bad Cop/Incompetent Cop: The incompetent, bumbling sidekick to Bellick's bad cop. No wonder he's the one who has to pick through T-Bag's stool.
- Bounty Hunter: In Season 2, with Bellick.
- The Bus Came Back: Geary is fired for corruption in Season 1, but returns in Season 2 to testify against Bellick. They later team up to hunt down the Fox River Eight.
- Butt-Monkey: Bellick treats him like this, such as making him sift through excrement, leading to Geary's betrayal.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: He has a tendency to betray the people he works for; it catches up to him.
- Dirty Guard: Geary is bottomlessly corrupt, frequently stealing from the inmates and accepting bribes.
- Dirty Coward: Attacks Bellick when his back is turned in order to steal the money.
- Dirty Old Man: When he gets the money, Geary immediately spends it on three young prostitutes who he wants to perform a 'Cleveland Steamer'. Don't look it up.
- The Dragon: To Bellick in Season 2, until his inevitable betrayal.
- Framing the Guilty Party: He becomes a target of this trope in "Bluff" when the escape team frames him for burning Michael's back before he can sell Cell 40 to other prisoners. While Geary is innocent of assaulting Michael, he is guilty of stealing inmates' possessions, such as Westmoreland's watch which Warden Pope finds in Geary's locker along with some stolen money.
- Karmic Death: Brutally killed by a man he tortured.
- Kick the Dog: When C-Note delivers Geary the money he promised for Michael and Sucre's at the time vacant cell, Geary rises the stakes, so in desperation C-Note persuades Westmoreland to give his pocket watch (that was a gift from his late wife). After getting the watch, Geary says that the cell has already been sold and smugly keeps both the money and watch. He soon gets his comeuppance when the escape team frames him for assaulting Michael and exposing his corruption, resulting in Warden Pope firing him.
- Laser-Guided Karma: T-Bag finds him in his hotel room while he's busy blowing the money and kills him off before using his death to frame Bellick.
- Put on a Bus: When he's fired from the prison.
Other Staff Members
Becky
Becky
Played By: Jennifer Joan Taylor
Warden Henry Pope's secretary. She has an illicit affair with corrections officer Louis Patterson.
Mailor
Reverand Mailor
Played By: Tom McElroy
The Prison Chaplain. He helps Lincoln through his ordeal of dying in the electric chair, and gives guidance to Abruzzi when he sees the image of Jesus Christ on his Prison Cell wall.
Katie
Katie Welch
Played By: DuShon Monique Brown
A nurse and friend of Sara Tancredi. She is shown to be the only person who Sara interacts with regularly inside and outside the prison.
- Put on a Bus: After Season 1.
- Satellite Character: Towards Sara.
Inmates
Westmoreland
Charles Westmoreland
"Marilyn, did you think he was the arsonist-type?"
Played By: Muse Watson
"Outliving your wife, that's bad enough. Outliving your daughter, no man should have to do that."
Fox River's longest-serving inmate (thirty-two years) and he tells Scofield that he has sixty more years left on his sentence. He is rumored to be the infamous hijacker D.B. Cooper, which he keeps denying. Michael wants to enlist him in his escape plan for this reason, but Westmoreland is not interested until he learns he won't be able to visit his dying daughter before the funeral.
- Agonizing Stomach Wound: He subdues Bellick when the latter finds the escape hole in the C.O. break room, though not before he's stabbed in the stomach by a coffee pot shard. Since he doesn't seek proper medical treatment, he suffers from the bleeding wound until he finally succumbs at the infirmary and dies.
- Armor-Piercing Question: When Michael tries to invite Westmoreland into his escape team, he gives a highly detailed explanation to why he believes Charles is D.B. Cooper. Westmoreland throws him off by asking him to counter his alibi for being incarcerated when Flight 305 was hijacked. He later explains that it was his father, Charles Westmoreland Senior, who was locked up when Charles Westmoreland Junior hijacked the plane.Westmoreland: Maybe I did hurt my knee, I did steal that car, and I did accidentally hit that poor lady. But how could I have hijacked a plane in Portland on November 24th, when I was in Folsom, finishing up a 30-day drunk and disorderly?
- Back for the Finale: He visits Michael during a coma dream in the last season.
- Cool Old Guy: He defeats Bellick, a much younger man in a one-on-one fight. He sustains a fatal stab wound that he keeps secret for an entire day and engages in an escape attempt, all the while bleeding to death.
- Dead Person Conversation: With Michael in Season 4, although it's strongly implied to be only a hallucination inside Michael's mind.
- Gentleman Thief: As D.B. Cooper in the past.
- Historical Badass Upgrade: The real-life D.B. Cooper jumped out of Flight 305 with a ransom of $200,000, which is equivalent to over one million dollars nowadays, but his survival is unlikely. Westmoreland, however, not only survived with a broken knee, but he extorted $5,000,000, with the government giving a much lower amount out of embarrassment.
- I Lied: When Westmoreland decides to join Michael's escape team, he admits that his earlier denials about him being D.B. Cooper were lies.Michael: I seem to remember several conversations that ended with, "I am not D.B. Cooper."
Westmoreland: I lied.
Michael: You lied?
Westmoreland: We're cons. We tend to do that.
- Kind Hearted Cat Lover: He has a cat named Marilyn due to a now-cancelled program that allowed inmates pets, a grandfather clause allows him to keep her. He refuses to be transferred out of Fox River because he would have to give Marilyn up.
- Manly Facial Hair: This moustached old con stole five million bucks before parachuting from Flight 305 and survived the fall of one thousand feet with a broken knee, defeats Bellick in a one-on-one duel, and manages to keep going for one day before succumbing to an untreated stab wound.
- Nice Guy: Has far fewer sins than some of the other prisoners.
- The Old Convict: He is one of Fox River's longest-serving convicts (thirty-two years). Sometimes he acts like a mentor to Michael, especially in the beginning of the first season. A hallucination of him returns in Season 4 to offer Michael some reassurance regarding the latter's actions as well as insight to what Scylla actually is.
- Papa Wolf: The only reason he decides to join the escape in the first place is because his daughter is ill and he would otherwise never have a chance to see her alive again.
- Posthumous Character: After Charles dies at the end of the first season, the five million dollars he stole as D.B. Cooper and hid in Utah become a source of conflict among the Fox River Eight as well as Bellick and Geary in Season 2. In Season 4, he appears inside Michael's mind during Michael's brain surgery to aid him in figuring out the Company's plot.
- Retired Badass: Was this until Michael comes to the prison.
- Secret Stab Wound: During his fight against Bellick, Westmoreland gets in his side a glass shard from a smashed coffee pot. Not wanting to miss his chance to see his dying daughter, he keeps it a secret from everyone. Only C-Note realizes he has it before Westmoreland dies at the infirmary.
- Shovel Strike: He attacks Bellick with a shovel until it's wrestled out of his grasp.
Tweener
David ‘Tweener’ Apolskis
"That's slavery, yo!"
Played By: Lane Garrison
"This ain't Fox River anymore, man. You're lookin' at the real deal now."
A prisoner of Fox River. It is later revealed that he was arrested after swiping a T206 Honus Wagner Baseball card and is charged with grand larceny. T-Bag gives him the nickname "Tweener" due to his affinity for African American culture, and harasses him until Michael Scofield intervenes.
- Book Dumb: He was deemed to be academically ineligible in the ninth grade, costing him his position in the school's football team. When he started using his nimble hands in pickpocketing instead, he did extensive research on different clasps of watches and necklaces so he could learn how to best steal them.
- Butt-Monkey: Tweener's life has been one long stretch of uninterrupted bad luck.
- Cluster F-Bomb: Drops one on T-Bag when he first approaches him.
- Dirty Coward: Borders on Lovable Coward sometimes. It's
Alternative Character Interpretation, really. - Grew a Spine: Despite being The Mole in Season 1, he doesn't betray the rest of the Fox River 8 in Season 2 despite all that was offered.
- Groin Attack: On his prison rapist.
- Had to Come to Prison to Be a Crook: Played with. He is a thief, but just a pickpocket. He's only in prison because he stole a baseball card that he thought was worthless, but was actually worth $300,000, slapping him with grand larceny.
- Heel–Face Door-Slam: He finally grows enough of a backbone to protect the rest of the Fox River Eight, but is promptly killed by Mahone.
- Heel–Face Revolving Door: You never know if he's on the inmates' side or on Bellick's side. He probably doesn't know either.
- In-Series Nickname: Has one in prison, like most prisoners: "Tweener".
- The Mole: Bellick forces him to become the rat, and it gets even worse when he can't provide him any new information.
- Percussive Pickpocket: He's a master at this. In "Otis", he steals Scott's Kolbrenner's wallet this way.
- Prison Rape: He's a victim of this due to being a small prisoner unaffiliated with any gang. Bellick, who uses him as a mole, uses this as a punishment against him by handing him over to the likes of Avocado.
- Pretty Fly for a White Guy: He tries to speak and act like an African-American, leading him to not fit in with either black or white inmates (hence his nickname "Tweener"). He even tries to write a rap:Tweener: Inside these walls / I creep and I crawl / Lookin' for a way out / But I know there's gonna be no easy route / This is gonna be a 12-round... a 12-round bout... / With Bellick and T-Bag on my mind / This grind in here...
- Rape as Drama: First, T-Bag constantly disturbs and threatens to abuse him, to the point where he cries in his cell while T-Bags sings that he's "coming", and it only stops when Michael intervenes. Later, it actually happens when Bellick moves him to Avocado's cell for not giving him any useful information.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: Lane Garrison, the actor playing Tweener, was driving while intoxicated and got into a car accident that killed one of his passengers, and was subsequently sent to jail for vehicular manslaughter. This happened while he was still on the show and the writers accelerated his being written out of the series because they knew there was next-to-no chance of him avoiding jail time.
- Redemption Equals Death: He sends Mahone to the wrong location, which gives Michael and the others the precious time they need to escape. Mahone guns him down for his troubles.
- Tag Along Kid: He is the youngest member of the Fox River 8, and is often seen as a nuisance to the other ones.
- Tears of Fear: He cries when T-Bag continues his harassment of him at night by singing from his cell that he'll come for Tweener.
Haywire
Charles ‘Haywire’ Patoshik
"They think I have schizo-affective disorder with bipolar tendencies."
Played By: Silas Weir Mitchell
"He's got the pathway on his body. It leads somewhere. It leads to hell. It's the pathway to hell."
A mentally ill inmate who was briefly Michael's cellmate. Becomes one of the Fox River Eight.
- Abusive Parents: Implied to be the reason he killed them. Confirmed in the case of his father, at least. He tells Sasha in Season 2 that he was a drinker and abusive towards him.
- Big Brother Instinct: When he notices a bruise on Sasha's arm and learns that her father is a drunk, he follows her to her home. When her father is about to beat her with a fireplace implement, Haywhire attacks him and beats him to death.
- Butt-Monkey: The other Fox River 8 members always screw him up, especially Michael.
- Cassandra Truth: He tries to tell the prison staff about Michael's tattoos two times, but he's ignored both times due to being seen as a raving madman.
- Character Tics: He's seen several times holding his right hand against his chest.
- Cloudcuckoolander: In Season 1, he believes that Michael's tattoos are a "pathway to hell". In Season 2, he decides to build a raft to go to Holland after seeing an oil painting.
- Creepy Monotone: Had some shades of it, when sharing his cell with Michael at least.
- The Cuckoo Lander Was Right: He's the only one that notices the true purpose of Michael's tattoos.
- Cute and Psycho: Of a non-Ax-Crazy variety.
- Dead Person Conversation: In Season 3, he appears to Alex in visions.
- Driven to Suicide: After being cornered on a tower, Mahone gently convinces him to jump. He does.
- Foil: Like Michael, Haywire has Hyper-Awareness (with him being the only one in Fox River who figures out the patterns of Michael's carefully designed tattoos), showed intellectual giftedness from an early age, and was abused in his childhood. Michael is a creative genius thanks to his low latent inhibition combined with his high IQ. While Haywire may not have exactly the same condition, he's in a sense what people with low latent inhibition and lower IQ than Michael's usually end up becoming; mentally disturbed, as Michael's former psychiatrist explains to Sara.
- Frameup: Michael pretends Haywire attacked him to send Haywire back to the psycho ward.
- Humble Goal: Played for laughs in Season 2, with his dream to go to Holland...on a raft he made himself.
- Hyper-Awareness: He is the only one in Fox River who notices the pattern on Michael's tattoos.
- In-Series Nickname: "Haywire".
- Insane Equals Violent: He killed his own parents and has a reputation for acting out. Michael uses this to get him transferred. Averted later when it seems he's ready to kill a blind woman, but instead just makes off with one of her paintings.
- The Insomniac: He doesn't sleep because of his "neuroanatomic lesion affecting his reticular activating system", getting in the way of Michael's plan since he could never dig in his cell.
- Mad Mathematician: According to Prison Break: The Classified FBI Files, Patoshik's insanity started developing when he intensively studied for a doctorate in mathematics, focusing on fractals.
- The Mentally Disturbed: Unambiguously mentally disturbed, though he doesn't go into the psych ward until Michael pretends that he attacked him.
- Neat Freak: During his time as Michael's cellmate, he's shown arranging his things and becomes worried when his toothpaste (which Michael stole) is not where he always places it.
- No Medication for Me: He hates taking sedatives because they're, as he puts it, invisible handcuffs, vomiting them out as soon as the psych ward's staff have made him swallow them. When Michael meets him under the effect of pills, Haywire can't use his Photographic Memory to draw on paper the destroyed part of Michael's tattoo until Michael gets him back to vomiting the pills out.
- Out of Focus: Probably gets the least focus of any of the prisoners that escape. He only appears in three episodes after breaking out, and doesn't know about Westmoreland's money.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: He kills the abusive father of the teenage girl Sasha when he's about to beat her.
- Photographic Memory: He remembers all of Michael's body tattoos completely and with exact detail. This works to Michael's advantage when he needs Patoshik to remember a piece where Michael's skin was burned too badly to read anymore.
- Plucky Comic Relief: In Season 2, where he is first shown eating ice cream and drinking soda directly from a machine, and then building a raft to go to Holland.
- Self-Made Orphan: He killed his abusive parents.
- The Teetotaler: He reveals in "The Message" that he doesn't drink beer due to his father.
Manche
Manche Sanchez
Played By: Joseph Nunez
Sucre's cousin. Manche works in the laundry and becomes invaluable to the escape team when they have to reformulate their escape-plan.
- Butt-Monkey: He's the only member of the escape team to not make it out due to his own incompetence and panic, leading to his mockery.
- Clean Up Crew: He works on the prison laundry, after all.
- Dirty Coward: He nearly ruins the escape by not waiting his turn, gives up the names of the escapees, and reveals critical information to Bellick under threats.
- Nervous Wreck: He's constantly terrified. When you keep getting threatened by the likes of T-Bag and Bellick, wouldn't you be?
Trumpets
Trumpets
Played By: Anthony Fleming
C-Note's right hand man in his black gang in Fox River.
- Beard of Evil: When he's seen in Season 2.
- The Bus Came Back: He turns up in Season 2 for a brief cameo, complete with new Beard of Evil.
- Eye Scream: C-Note splashes chemicals in his eyes to gain the upper hand.
- Number Two: He's C-Note's right hand man.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Has the hell beat out of C-Note after the latter attacks him.
- The Starscream: Turns on C-Note after he starts working with T-Bag, part of the white supremacist group, for the escape.
Gus
Gus Fiorello
Played By: Peter J. Reineman
Abruzzi's right-hand man at Fox River.
- Eye Scream: Abruzzi slices a broken bulb into his eye socket.
- Number Two: To Abruzzi for a time.
- The Starscream: Falcone promotes him when Abruzzi starts to lose his power, and Gus is happy to do it.
Avocado
"Avocado" Balz-Johnson
Played By: Daniel Allar
An inmate who is assigned as Tweener's cellmate
- The Bus Came Back: He returns in Season 2 as Bellick's cellmate.
- Fat Bastard: He's large, overweight and a notorious rapist of weaker inmates.
- Groin Attack: A victim of this by Tweener, whom he raped repeatedly.
- In-Series Nickname: "Avocado".
- Only Known by Their Nickname: His first name is never revealed. It's also unclear if Balz-Johnson is his actual surname or his idea of a joke.
- Prison Rape: He's known for raping weaker inmates, something Bellick takes advantage of to threaten Tweener.
- Rape as Drama: His repeated rape of Tweener causes the latter to nearly breakdown, which guilts Michael into helping him.
Cherry
Seth 'Cherry' Hoffner
Played By: Blaine Hogan
A young inmate who shares a cell with T-Bag.
- Broken Bird: His repeated rape by T-Bag and being forced to lie about a murder weigh heavily on his mind.
- Driven to Suicide: Seth hangs himself rather than remain T-Bag's plaything.
- The Quiet One: Due to nerves at first, but eventually T-Bag purposefully enforces it.
- Prison Rape: A victim of this by T-Bag.
- Rape as Drama: He is constantly nervous and horrified due to being raped by T-Bag, even begging for Michael's help (unsuccessfully). Eventually, he commits suicide.
- Shrinking Violet: His quiet, nervous disposition is part of what gets him targeted by Trokey and T-Bag.
Trokey
Christopher Trokey
Played By: Robert Michael Vieau
An inmate who was a friend of T-Bag's.
- Asshole Victim: A non-fatal example.
- Frameup: T-Bag frames him as the murdered of Bob Hudson by putting a picture of the guard's daughter under his bed and forcing Cherry to accuse him.
Banks
Banks
Played By: Lester Speight
The leader of another black gang at Fox River consisting of himself and four others.
- Affably Evil: He's pretty friendly as long as you don't argue with him, tell him no, or refuse to give him exactly what he wants. If you do any of those things, he drops the affable mask immediately.
- Berserk Button: Don't let him think you're making him look like an ass in front of his friends.
- Scary Black Man: Definitely, and the rest of his gang to a slightly lesser extent.
