History Main / TradingBarsForStripes

May overlap with ArmyOfThievesAndWhores, LegionOfLostSouls and/or ReformedCriminal. Also a subtrope of ConsequenceCombo, as you either fight for TheGovernment and clear your record, or do time. The inverse is FromCamouflageToCriminal, where someone turns to a life of crime after leaving the military.

May overlap with ArmyOfThievesAndWhores and LegionOfLostSouls. Also a subtrope of ConsequenceCombo, as you either fight for TheGovernment and clear your record, or do time. The inverse is FromCamouflageToCriminal, where someone turns to a life of crime after leaving the military.

* ''Special Forces'' has Felony, an 18-year-old delinquent who was got to choose between a long prison term and military service. The series takes place during the Iraq War, but the fact that this is an unusual practice for the time is mentioned--Felony would never have gotten the offer if it weren't for a recruiting officer at his wits' end trying to make a quota.

** Disgraced Red Army personnel whose service earned them (back) the right to serve in the Army and avoid imprisonment. Their crimes included cowardice (all ranks) or gross incompetence (Officers and [=NCOs=]). Personnel who had not escaped enemy captivity of their own volition were regarded as suspect due to reports of up half a million Soviet POW defecting to serve the Germans as ''Hiwi'' ("Hilfswiliger") troops for "anti-Partisan" (including UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust) and logistics duties. Recaptured personnel were allowed to prove their commitment to the anti-Fascist cause by serving in ''Shtrafbaty'', Penal Batallions modelled on those of the contemporary ''Wehrmacht''. Service terms were just 1-3 months, but permanent losses (captured, dead, crippled) averaged about 50% of the total combat forces per three months in 1941, 25% in 1942, 17% in 1943, 12% in 1944, and 5% in 1945. ''Shtrafbaty'' losses were always higher because they were used for the toughest fighting.

* ''Film/{{Ava|2020}}'': The opening credits show that Ava was an overachieving honor roll student when she was involved in a serious car accident while driving under the influence. She ended up joining the Army to get away from [[DarkAndTroubledPast her toxic family and the booze and drugs]], winding up in Special Forces.

* Subverted in the Australian comedy ''Mr Reliable''. Due to a series of misunderstandings the main character, an ex-con in the late 1960s, has found himself trapped in his girlfriend's house with the authorities convinced that he's holding her hostage, and events have gradually snowballed into making him seem like a hero of the anti-Vietnam War movement. To neutralise him, the authorities make a deal that if he agrees to sign up for military service, they'll drop any charges. Unfortunately, when he goes to enlist, it's discovered that he's illiterate, and so the army rejects him. However, the police chief is a ReasonableAuthorityFigure who's figured out the misunderstanding and lets him go anyway, since the main character technically kept his end of the bargain.

* ''Film/{{Ava}}'': The opening credits show that Ava was an overachieving honor roll student when she was involved in a serious car accident while driving under the influence. She ended up joining the Army to get away from [[DarkAndTroubledPast her toxic family and the booze and drugs]], winding up in Special Forces.

* ''VideoGame/StarCraft'': Terran soldiers are often "neurally resocialized" convicts, which is the process of implanting FakeMemories to alter their personalities into more socially-acceptable norms. The ones too crazy to be resoc-ed are instead given the choice of enlisting into the Reaper Corps to earn their freedom after two years of service, instead of rotting in prison or execution.

* ''VideoGame/StarCraft'': Terran soldiers are often "neurally resocialized" convicts. Exactly what they did varies widely: everything from the usual ArmyOfThievesAndWhores portrayal, to one case in the ''Frontline'' comic book where the Terran Dominion resoccs a political dissident to the point where he executes a former lover and comrade without hesitation.
** Tychus Findley in ''VideoGame/StarCraftIIWingsOfLiberty'' is a specific example who used to be a thief and an old friend of Raynor's, who was on ice for years before [[spoiler:Emperor Mengsk thawed him out and fitted him with armor that would kill him if removed, so he could infiltrate Raynor's resistance movement and assassinate Kerrigan.]]

* Series/FireCountry follows a group of prisoners who volunteer for a penal fire battalion in exchange for reduced sentences.

** The Sith Inquisitor was a former slave who was granted freedom and allowed (or rather, forced) to enroll in the Sith Academy after it was discovered they were Force-sensitive.

* ''Literature/TheOccupationSaga: Between Worlds'' starts with main character Jason Linford being offered a choice between jail time or enlisting in the Shil'vati Imperial Marines after a video of him knocking an off-duty Shil'vati soldier on her ass in a BarBrawl goes viral on the internet. Under normal circumstances the offense wouldn't have rated either penalty, but VichyEarth's Imperial governor wants to make an example of him to keep the incident from emboldening LaResistance.

* [[SociopathicSoldier Animal Mother]] in ''The Short-Timers'', a UsefulNotes/VietnamWar era novel by Gustav Hasford, was given a choice between prison and the [[SemperFi Marine Corps]]. He came to regret his choice.

* Jerry Pournelle's Literature/CoDominium novel ''West of Honor''. After Harlan Slater's father dies he tries to run the family ranch but doesn't know all of the legal procedures he has to follow. When the government tries to take possession of the ranch he resists and is arrested. The judge on the case is an old friend of his father and arranges to get him into the [=CoDominium=] Military Academy. Harlan ends up as an officer in the [=CoDominium=] Marines.
* ''The Bio of a Space Tyrant'' series by Creator/PiersAnthony. In "Mercenary", Hope Hubris wants to join the Jupiter military but he's two years underage, so has to work as a migrant worker in a space farm. Then when the workers riot against their conditions, the magistrate forcibly conscripts him into the military. Hope tells the magistrate he's underage, but it turns out a couple of Hope's friends have made false affidavits [[BriarPatching claiming he's lying about his age to avoid military service]].
* In the ''Track'' action adventure series by Jerry Ahern, the title character mentions this while lecturing on his BackStory. He says this was during the Vietnam War so [[LoweredRecruitingStandards "they were taking anyone who could walk in those days"]].

* ''Series/TheEqualizer'': (The 2021 series) [=McCall=] reveals to her daughter that as a teenager she stole a car, and was given the opportunity to join the military rather than go to prison by a kind judge who was willing to look past her priors and give her a chance.

* ''VideoGame/StarCraft'': Terran soldiers tend to be "neurally resocialized" convicts. Exactly what they did varies widely: everything from the usual ArmyOfThievesAndWhores portrayal, to one case in the ''Frontline'' comic book where the Terran Dominion resoccs a political dissident to the point where he executes a former lover and comrade without hesitation.
** The ''VideoGame/StarCraftI'' Terran campaign {{novelization}} ''Liberty's Crusade'' has a female Marine assigned to be the bodyguard/minder of the protagonist (a journalist embedded with the Confederate military's Alpha Squadron). She's eventually revealed to be a former serial killer who flayed her victims alive with a kitchen knife; when she witnesses firsthand what the Zerg do to their victims, the stress starts to unravel her neural resocialization. [[spoiler:She loses it completely when she gets trapped by Zerg and [[TakingYouWithMe goes to town on them with a knife]] until she ends up [[HalfTheManHeUsedToBe Half The Woman She Used To Be]].]]

** In ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery'', Michael Burnham is dishonorably discharged and given a life sentence for mutiny at the end of the second episode. Captain Gabriel Lorca of USS ''Discovery'' gives her a reprieve in exchange for her help ending the war with the Klingons, which she helped start. Somewhat unusually for the trope, Burnham tells Ash Tyler it's only a temporary reprieve: once the war's over, she goes back to prison. [[spoiler:She doesn't: at the end of the season she's pardoned and reinstated in Starfleet.]]

* The Sith Warrior tutorial in ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'' has the PC decide the fates of several prisoners. They can send a ProfessionalKiller locked up for a failed hit on an Imperial spy to work for Imperial Intelligence.

* In ''TruthRedWhiteAndBlack'', one of the black test subjects for the Super Soldier serum was Maurice Canfield, a young man with a moneyed background and strong socialist leanings. When he was arrested for taking part in an anti-war protest, his family's reputation allowed him the option to join the military rather than serve jail time. Implicitly, were it not for this incident he would have used his money to avoid the draft altogether.

* In ''[[ComicBook/CaptainAmerica Truth: Red, White, and Black]]'', one of the black test subjects for the Super Soldier serum was Maurice Canfield, a young man with a moneyed background and strong socialist leanings. When he was arrested for taking part in an anti-war protest, his family's reputation allowed him the option to join the military rather than serve jail time. Implicitly, were it not for this incident he would have used his money to avoid the draft altogether.

* Played with during the first ''Film/PoliceAcademy'' film. Carey Mahoney only joins the police academy (rather than the military) because it was that or jail time. Even then, he was only given the option because an old friend of his deceased dad (a highly respected police officer) pulls some strings to give him one ''last'' chance.

* Youthful offenders in the US were sometimes sentenced to probation on the condition that they enlist. This practice has been banned by Act of Congress at the request of the military.

* The 36. Waffen-SS Grenadier Division, "Dirlewanger". Dr. Oskar Dirlewanger was a Nazi mad political scientist and BoxedCrook who proposed to form an SS unit from arrested poachers (later expanded to include all kinds of arrested criminals, including rapists, psychopaths, child molesters and murderers). Eventually, Dirlewanger became the commander of his own division, an ArmyOfThievesAndWhores recruited from prisons and jails and infamous for cruelty. [[EvenEvilHasStandards It was abhorred even within the Waffen SS]], to say nothing of the people in the areas it operated. SS-General Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger, who did not hesitate to spill the blood of hundreds of thousands in occupied Poland, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Dirlewanger#World_War_II once threatened Dirlewanger personally]] [[EvenEvilHasStandards just because he was too disgusted with him]] and his [[ExactWords army of criminals]]. They were used primarily as anti-partisan forces, including in suppressing the Warsaw Uprising, but critical shortages of troops had them pressed into combat fighting the Red Army advances, where most were killed. Dirlewanger himself went into hiding and was captured by the French after the war, and was[[KarmicDeath beaten to death by Polish troops]].

* The 36. Waffen-SS Grenadier Division, "Dirlewanger". Dr. Oskar Dirlewanger was a Nazi mad political scientist and BoxedCrook who proposed to form an SS unit from arrested poachers (later expanded to include all kinds of arrested criminals, including rapists, psychopaths, child molesters and murderers). Eventually, Dirlewanger became the commander of his own division, an ArmyOfThievesAndWhores recruited from prisons and jails and infamous for cruelty. [[EvenEvilHasStandards It was abhorred even within the Waffen SS]], to say nothing of the people in the areas it operated. SS-General Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger, who did not hesitate to spill the blood of hundreds of thousands in occupied Poland, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Dirlewanger#World_War_II once threatened Dirlewanger personally]] [[EvenEvilHasStandards just because he was too disgusted with him]] and his [[ExactWords army of criminals]].

** In [[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS1E1TheCaretaker the pilot episode]] of ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' Tom Paris was recruited by Captain Janeway from a New Zealand penal colony for a dangerous mission into the Badlands to help find a Maquis raider. Played with in that to the characters it was ''supposed'' to be a downplayed BoxedCrook situation (help with one specific mission, and you'll get help with your sentence), but then Voyager ended up stuck on the other side of the galaxy, and 'help with one mission' ended up becoming 'pilot and all-around expert for seven years straight'. By the time they got back his sentence had apparently become a non-issue, probably because he'd originally been jailed for involvement in terrorist attacks against the Cardassians, whom the Federation were at war with for much of Voyager's sojourn in the Delta Quadrant.