A prison inmate would not be wearing polka dots, regardless of how identifiable they are. They bring lightness and play to the situation, and prisons are not for play. Black and white stripes convey the opposite of polka dots.
One article says that the origin of the black-and-white-striped prison uniform goes back to the Auburn prison system that started in New York in the 1820s. The uniforms made prisoners immediately recognizable as criminals, so if a prisoner escaped, the public could easily distinguish them from the non-criminal population.
However, Wikipedia says that stripes were used in clothing for negative symbolism starting in Medieval times. Prisoners, criminals, clowns, prostitutes, hangmen wore black and white striped clothes. The change came when Queen Victoria dressed her son in a sailor suit and started a positive trend with stripes.
When it comes to clothing, horizontal stripes have their own reputation of making a person look fatter. Discover magazine tells us that the Helmholtz illusion results in the opposite - adding horizontal stripes to shapes like rectangles makes them look thinner.
I found one striped shirt joke and a perfect prison joke:
Why does Waldo wear stripes on his shirt? Because he doesn’t want to be spotted.
Just like dots, there aren't many images in my database tagged with stripes. This one was created from interesting grunge on King Street West. It looks more like prison bars than stripes.
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