Character mistake: Red says that Andy crawled to freedom through 500 yards - 'just shy of half a mile'. 500 yards is far less than half a mile; in fact, it's less than a third of a mile. It is however just shy of half a kilometer, which may be what King was thinking of when he wrote the book.
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
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Directed by: Frank Darabont
Starring: Morgan Freeman, Clancy Brown, Tim Robbins, William Sadler, Bob Gunton, Gil Bellows
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Red: Andy Dufresne - who crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side.
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Chosen answer: In a nutshell, tax evasion. He's running the prison like a company doing building work with, as its described by the builder in the movie, a pool of slave labour to allow him undercut other contractors. He is skimming profit for his own pockets, along with taking bribes, etc. that Andy's creative book keeping is hiding from the IRS.