History Main / WardensAreEvil

* In ''Film/BootCamp'', Dr. Hail is a zealot whose belief in his system blinds him to the harm he is doing to the teens. Logan, the head of security at Camp Serenity, is a DangerousDeserter who uses SexualExtortion on the girls and, if that doesn't work, resorts to rape.

* One of the final villains of ''Series/TheWalkingDead2010'' is the unnamed Warden who runs the Commonwealth's secret concentration camps which mostly consist of political dissidents and enemies of Governor Pamela Milton. He refuses to allow anybody to go by their names to dehumanize them, forces even pregnant women to participate in slave labor, happily kills any escapees, abuses his troops under his command, and finally decides to massacre dozens of people, including the aforementioned pregnant woman, for standing up to him. [[spoiler:He's luckily thwarted by the prisoners' remaining friends who escaped capture, and by his own men who turn on him.]]

* ''VideoGame/Uncharted4AThiefsEnd'': Vargas, the warden of a Panamanian prison that Nathan and Samuel Drake and their ally Rafe Adler are staying in, is a greedy, corrupt FatBastard who's willing to break any number of the rules he's supposed to abide by -- [[DirtyCop taking bribes]], [[PoliceBrutality beating up the inmates]], and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking showing Nate a vacant prison tower he wants him to explore for pirate treasure]]. Despite this, he's mostly on Nate's side, given that [[IdleRich Rafe's]] bribing him to help them in their search for the pirate colony of Libertalia, but to him, Rafe's money is not enough- he wants a cut of Libertalia's treasure too. Eventually, after finding Nate unearthed a St. Dismas cross in the tower that he never informed Vargas about, the enraged warden contemplates shooting him -- only for Rafe to successfully negotiate with him in exchange for 25% of the gold. This done, when it appears as though Bargas is threatening revenge on the Americans if they try cheating him again, Rafe [[PayEvilUntoEvil stabs him to death]]- but that backfires too, because Vargas fires his gun into the air before he dies, alerting the rest of the guard, and forcing the Drakes and Rafe to attempt escape- which ends with Sam getting shot and [[spoiler:seemingly]] dying.

* ''ComicBook/{{The Outsiders|DCComics}}'': In ''ComicBook/BatmanAndTheOutsiders'' #4, Warden Brewster of Gotham State Prison deliberately denies a prisoner (codenamed "Meltdown") needed medical treatments and then lies that the Prison Board was responsible. He does this to trick the dangerously radioactive felon into escaping so he can be killed to save the public. Turns out the warden has decided rehabilitation doesn't work, so he's been finding ways to "legally" off prisoners.

* In ''Film/{{The Count of Monte Cristo|2002}}'', the warden of the Chateau d'If is a sadist who among other things has the prisoners [[ATasteOfTheLash flogged]] and given a lash for every year of imprisonment. Incidentally, this is a case of AdaptationalVillainy, since in the novel the guards (the warden doesn't appear) are presented as [[PunchClockVillain good men doing a bad job]].

* ''Series/TheATeam'': The BigBad of the episode "Pros and Cons" is the warden of a Florida prison who takes exceptionally tough prisoners and forces them to fight to the death in an illegal [[TheBoxingEpisode boxing ring]].

* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'': In "[[Recap/CSINYS08E08 Crossroads]]," the warden of a juvenile detention center conspires with a family court judge, giving him kickbacks for sending as many youths to the center as possible. The scheme lands a teenage sports phenom there for stealing a pack of gum and completely destroys his life (inside he was hurt and his stuff stolen by other inmates, and outside the "ex-con" stigma meant he ended up as a waiter). The boy ends up killing the judge, after which he tells detectives, "You know what happens to good kids when they get sent here? They end up as bad as the rest of 'em."

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': [[TheGhost The unseen warden]] of the prison space station that Davros is kept on in "Resurrection of the Daleks" is supposedly a real tyrant whom even the staff of the station are afraid of. However, he is killed when the Daleks storm the station without ever appearing onscreen.

* ''Series/{{Forever|2014}}'': In the flashbacks of "Skinny Dipper" Henry has been taken away to an asylum in 1815 after telling his wife Nora about his immortality. The unnamed man running the Charring Cross Asylum uses what modern viewers recognize as waterboarding as part of Henry's "treatments." He admits that Henry seems to be perfectly sane, but proceeds anyway, and continues even as Henry desperately pleads that he no longer believes he's immortal.

* On ''Series/{{Gotham}}'', Detective Jim Gordon is framed for murder and sent to prison. Unfortunately for Gordon, the warden is a friend of the former corrupt police commissioner whose career Gordon ended. As soon as the publicity from the case has died down, the warden has Gordon transferred from protective custody to general population which is a death sentence for Gordon. Gordon is soon the victim of brutal beatings and the warden orders his guards not to intervene.
* In NBC's ''Series/{{Hannibal}}'', Dr. Frederick Chilton oversees the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, and has shown himself to be an evil, conniving man. In season 1, Chilton brainwashes Abel Gideon into believing he's the Chesapeake Ripper. In season 2, he secretly records nearly all of his inmate's conversations, and [[spoiler:secretly shares Will's conversations with Hannibal without Will's consent. He hires Matthew Brown as an orderly despite Brown's history of mental illness.]]
* ''Series/TheILand'': [[spoiler:The Warden has been tampering with the results of the program because he believes the criminals are irredeemable, inserting elements into the simulation such as the gun, the cannibal island, and Bonnie and Clyde. He also bribes Chase to keep quiet about it, then later [[SheKnowsTooMuch tries to have her killed]].]]

* In the ''Series/{{Leverage}}'' episode "The Jailhouse Job," Nate finds himself in a prison run by a corrupt warden who is imprisoning innocent people to keep his occupancy rates up.

* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'': {{Subverted|Trope}} in "Small Friends" as Warden Taylor is a ReasonableAuthorityFigure who simply does his job and treats the prisoners with respect. A more straightforward example is the prison guard Gabriel who not only turns a blind eye to Marlon terrorizing other prisoners but actively assists in his escape in exchange for money. He ends up getting killed by Marlon for his trouble.

* On ''Series/TheXFiles'', Warren Brodeur, the corrupt petty tyrant of a Florida death row in "The List."
* One of the final villains of ''{{Series/The Walking Dead|2010}}'' is the unnamed Warden who runs the Commonwealth's secret concentration camps which mostly consist of political dissidents and enemies of Governor Pamela Milton. He refuses to allow anybody to go by their names to dehumanize them, forces even pregnant women to participate in slave labor, happily kills any escapees, abuses his troops under his command, and finally decides to massacre dozens of people, including the aforementioned pregnant woman, for standing up to him. [[spoiler:He's luckily thwarted by the prisoners' remaining friends who escaped capture, and by his own men who turn on him.]]

* Averted in ''VisualNovel/AceAttorneyInvestigations2: Prosecutor's Path''. The warden, Patricia Roland, is uncannily kind to the inmates, referring to them as her "family" and the prison as their "home." Her {{Leitmotif}} is even called "Hugs and Kisses"! [[spoiler:This is DoubleSubverted after all when she's unmasked as the killer of the previous case's culprit, who she was manipulated into believing was a subordinate of a notorious assassin already in her custody and bent on revenge. In cases 4 and 5, the skeletons ''really'' get dragged out of her closet when it's revealed that, years earlier, she ran an OrphanageOfFear and was directly and willfully involved in a presidential assassination.]]
* While not officially a warden, Commander Mckinsey is one in all but official name. He is the leader of the 444th "Spare" Squadron, a penal fighter squadron in ''VideoGame/AceCombat7SkiesUnknown''. He commands his squadron with an utter disdain for his subordinates (who are all convicted criminals). He leads the squadron with such condescending contempt, he takes credit for all the work they do while receiving medals for them, he sends the squadron out on dangerous and borderline suicide missions on a regular basis, and he is more than happy to throw anybody into solitary confinement for even the slightest bit of disobedience. Even the squadron's MissionControl and flying prison guard, AWACS Bandog doesn't like him.

* The ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyZombies'' map "Mob of the Dead" takes place in a hellish version of Alcatraz, complete with a RecurringBoss in the form of Brutus, the warden. He towers over all others, can take a ton of damage, and has electrical attacking abilities.
** He returns in the "Blood of the Dead" return-to-Alcatraz map, and here we learn that Brutus was originally the actual Warden of the actual Alcatraz, and this Trope held through just as strongly in life. He participated in a bit of demonic worship in his spare time and ended up [[MyDeathIsOnlyTheBeginning sacrificing himself]] in order to be reincarnated as the ruler of his own Hell dimension.

* {{Franchise/DragonQuest}}:

* In ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'', the prison ship ''Purgatory'' is run by Warden Kuril, a corrupt mercenary who extorts planetary governments to keep convicts off their worlds, sells convicts to people who want to mete out "personal justice" and, inevitably, [[TooDumbToLive tries to double-cross Shepard]]. He is also one of the few turians shown without any [[FacialMarkings face paint]], hinting he was going to stab Shepard and his squad the moment he could from the start as the term "barefaced" means "untrustworthy".
** The Warden also allows his guards to engage in some ColdBloodedTorture by beating on a prisoner for entertainment, as well as using it as a JackBauerInterrogationTechnique. The rest of Shepard's squad expresses disgust at the Warden and the guards' behavior, either because they find torture morally reprehensible, [[PragmaticVillainy or because]] [[TortureIsIneffective they think torture doesn't work because the victim will say anything to make the pain stop]].

* ''VideoGame/Uncharted4AThiefsEnd'': Vargas, the warden of a Panamanian prison that Nathan and Samuel Drake and their ally Rafe Adler are staying in, is a greedy, corrupt FatBastard who's willing to break any number of the rules he's supposed to abide by- [[DirtyCop taking bribes]], [[PoliceBrutality beating up the inmates]], and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking showing Nate a vacant prison tower he wants him to explore for pirate treasure]]. Despite this, he's mostly on Nate's side, given that [[IdleRich Rafe's]] bribing him to help them in their search for the pirate colony of Libertalia, but to him, Rafe's money is not enough- he wants a cut of Libertalia's treasure too. Eventually, after finding Nate unearthed a St. Dismas cross in the tower that he never informed Vargas about, the enraged warden contemplates shooting him- only for Rafe to successfully negotiate with him in exchange for 25% of the gold. This done, when it appears as though Bargas is threatening revenge on the Americans if they try cheating him again, Rafe [[PayEvilUntoEvil stabs him to death]]- but that backfires too, because Vargas fires his gun into the air before he dies, alerting the rest of the guard, and forcing the Drakes and Rafe to attempt escape- which ends with Sam getting shot and [[spoiler:seemingly]] dying.
* ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII'':
** Maiev Shadowsong is a downplayed version- when you control her, she's chasing after Illidan, who was her prisoner for ten millennia, but there's no evidence that she mistreated him (and given that in the previous game, you freed him by killing her troops, her anger is understandable). She turns into a KnightTemplar over the course of the campaign, willing to sacrifice her own allies in order to motivate the others to hunt him down.

** The warden in "Imprisoned", voiced by Creator/GeorgeTakei, is a BadBoss who throws subordinates overboard, delights in crushing the spirits of those in his custody, and on top of it all is a DirtyCoward. It also doesn't help that his "prison" is essentially a ''concentration camp'' for Earthbenders, rather than a jail for actual criminals.
** The warden in the two-parter Episode "The Boiling Rock" would rather die (and have prisoners killed as well) than tarnish his prison's record of zero escapes. Also, he tortures a prisoner into revealing escape plans. Though interestingly, he gets some PetTheDog moments with [[spoiler:his niece Mai]].

* In 1990s ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}'' comics, the warden of Blackgate Penitentiary was Victor Zehrhardt, a tyrant who viewed the prison population as animals -- and don't get him started on Batman himself.
* ''ComicBook/{{Batman and the Outsiders}}'' #4: Warden Brewster of Gotham State Prison deliberately denies a prisoner (codenamed "Meltdown") needed medical treatments and then lies that the Prison Board was responsible. He does this to trick the dangerously radioactive felon into escaping so he can be killed to save the public. Turns out the warden has decided rehabilitation doesn't work, so he's been finding ways to "legally" off prisoners.
* Ranko, featured in a ''ComicBook/{{Diabolik}}'' story, torments his prisoners while also selling them guns, knives, and other illegal goods. Diabolik actually takes advantage of it: when one of the prisoners kills someone who befriended Diabolik in the process of breaking out, Diabolik's revenge is to ''drug the convict into walking back to the jail'', with Ranko shown anticipating all the torments he'll inflict on him for getting him in trouble with the riot he caused to break out.
* ''Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine'' features Thinktwice, a space prison whose inmates are kept under control through memory-wiping. At best, this leaves them with no sense of identity and thus nothing to fight for; at worst, it fries their brains. The warden claims to be doing all this for their 'rehabilitation' while loving every minute of it. Oh, and his memory-wiping machine? It's being used to feed some very nasty, very hungry aliens.
* Gregory Wolfe, warden of Iron Heights Penitentiary in ''ComicBook/TheFlash''. He's a menacing figure with the power to induce painful muscle spasms in others, he doesn't hesitate to use it on anyone, even the Flash himself. He is violently opposed to the idea that criminals can or should be rehabilitated or redeemed -- he just wants to ensure that they're ''punished''. Prisoners are starved and beaten regularly by his heavily armored guards. Oh, and it's stated he was an AmoralAttorney before he became warden; the only person he failed to convict was mysteriously murdered two days after the trial. During Joshua Williamson's run, the Central City police department try to get him busted, but it's nigh-impossible to get any criminal out from under his thumb, let alone find one willing to testify. [[spoiler:Eventually, however, he does get busted, and in a nice dose of irony, imprisoned right next to Captain Cold.]]
* Warden Kang of ''ComicBook/{{Kaijumax}}'' rules the island of giant monsters with an iron fist. Helps that he can turn himself into [[Series/{{Ultraman}} a giant armored soldier who can shoot lasers out of his chest.]]
* "They Wait in Their... Dungeon!" in ''Menace'' #1 features a sadistic warden who uses [[ATasteOfThelash a whip to inflict punishment]] on prisoners for the slightest infraction of the rules. His actions include extinguishing a cigarette on the forehead of a convict, force-feeding a prisoner a pot of dishwater, and denying a death row prisoner pencil and paper so he can write a last letter to his mother. His actions eventually spark a revolt by the inmates and he attempts to flee downstairs. The inmates pursue him and, as the story ends, the warden realizes he has [[SadisticChoice a choice between two dooms]]; the poisonous fumes still lingering in the execution chamber or being torn to shreds by the maddened inmates.
* A variation: An arc of ''ComicBook/PowerGirl'' involved a superpowered man (his parents immigrated from Qurac but he was born in America) who had been arrested and put under maximum security restraints and constant ''24''-style interrogation without the capacity to even contact (let alone go visit) his dying father (or any kind of representatives for his defense). He had been put under arrest with the hope that he would break out and create a precedent for superpowered terrorists in order to speed up a MutantDraftBoard proposal.
* The warden of the interdimensional prison in ''ComicBook/RobynHood: The Hunt'' runs the penitentiary as his own personal fiefdom. subjecting the prisoners to all kinds of cruel and unusual punishment, and forcing them to fight for his amusement.
* ''Comicbook/Rocket2017:'' The warden of the prison Rocket gets sent to is deliberately one of these. Rocket notes the private security company that owns the prison deliberately hires the nastiest person they can get. All part of the service.
* {{Subverted}} by Maxon, appearing in one ''ComicBook/TexWiller'' story: he has no problem beating up the inmates and making their lives into living hells, but they have to be creating discipline problems for that, as made clear in his EstablishingCharacterMoment (he beats up his new inmate Jim Lowell, AKA [[GetIntoJailFree Tex faking being a murderer to infiltrate a gang]], but that's after 'Lowell' went out of his way to provoke him into a fistfight, and doesn't give him any more trouble after he 'learned his lesson').

* ''VideoGame/DigitalDevilSaga 2'': The Jailer, who spends all of his screentime in the form of the demon Kumbhanda, guards the "Internment Facility", which is actually a plant that [[IAmAHumanitarian processes meat from people]]. His prisoners are held there for some time, before he sticks them (presumably alive) into the machine and eats the results. While the setting more or less runs on HorrorHunger, the Jailer is one of the few shown to ''enjoy'' having to eat people.

* ''VideoGame/MegaManXCommandMission'': Silver Horn is effectively the overseer of Tianna Camp, where [[TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized the Rebellion]] keeps [=POWs=]. He personally tortures and murders many prisoners, including [[spoiler:the original Massimo]], and forces [[BridgeBunnies Nana]] to work for him, threatening to execute everyone in the camp.

* ''VideoGame/OctopathTravelerII'': Warden Davids forces prisoners to work in freezing cold weather without any warm clothes, frequently beats them up, and doesn't care if they die. And the work he forces prisoners to do serves only to bring him profit.