Getting back in PA

[u/Cute-Low-621]

Enabled: Gangs, Weather, Events, Fail Conditions, Criminally Insane

Average reoffending has increased to 42% but that is because i've expanded cells into dorms, which brought an influx of gang members. Generally a more punitive approach with some programs / work experience opportunities available. A lot of monitoring and shakedowns though, especially of staff areas (since those get a lot of drugs and tools smuggled in).

Currently evaluation is $2,270,000. No loans and no selling of shares. Only 5 staff deaths and 5 prisoners deaths since I started building this prison, which has been about a year or so ago? Only one escape by a criminally insane inmate who somehow managed to run though the kitchen, around the parameter, and swim off the map (hence the newly added sniper tower near the death row facility).

Very addicted to PA at the moment, despite some of the bugs!

[u/SquareCanine]

I do like the idea of islands and being forced to adapt to the shape and limited size. I'll have to keep this in mind when I do a new build. Might be nice to do something smaller too. Do you only have 1 power facility? My current prison has 7 (if I used max caps it could have 4). There is definitely a population threshold where prisons devolve into a sort of constant pandemonium. People always kicking off, or shakedown now cheesing off so many people that it triggers riots. Not unmanageable, but always something going on. You prison looks peaceful.

And I love the pond in the yard.

[u/Cute-Low-621 → u/SquareCanine]

Thank you so much! The pond was there when I first started the map, so I chose to work around it and incorporate it into the facility.

Yes, only one power facility. Being an island, it is quite fun having to work with the limited space. This prison can house about 50 prisoners collectively, so the risk of riots is pretty low (especially due to the separated cellblocks which house les than 10 prisoners each).

I've done a few tests using the Instant Riot mod (jailbreak, instant riot), and besides a few serious injuries, this prison seems to be pretty difficult to escape unless you decide to tunnel (which can be easily controlled with tunnel searches). The only real difficulty is related to meeting specific needs (specifically visitation, which this prison lacks) , and volatile prisoners, which increase the heat level around the work hours.

I've found stationing guards outside of the cellblocks and placing metal detectors on the way out from work areas generally controls contraband. I've also found that moving prisoners prone to kicking-off into cells closer to the enterances of cellblocks makes it easier anf faster for guards to reach them before any real damage is done.

Its definitely a little different to what I usually tend to build (being massive facilities housing hundreds of prisoners), but I find that having a smaller facility let's me focus more on the individuals within the prison, and sort of personalise them. Its especially fun to observe how maximum security inmates who got paroled out of death row age, and eventually get released after decades of serving. Or seeing a prisoner who would often cause trouble settle down and reduce their reoffending rate by engaging with programs. Its a really pleasant way to play the game if you want to take a break from the more 'managing' side of running a massive prison, which I find makes me reduce the prisoners to just numbers rather than individual characters within the facility!

[u/SquareCanine → u/Cute-Low-621]

The way you talk about the smaller prison reminds me of when my current prison first started and I actually knew who some of the prisoners were (mostly from looking into the ones who qualified for transfer).

My favorite is a woman in for two murders and arson who at one point I threw in Supermax for committing another murder inside my prison. She actually earned her transfer out of Supermax (even after I made it harder because I didn't really want to say yes), and has made it all the way down to Minimum at least once (before trying to escape and being booted back to Medium). She's been in my prison for 151 of it's 176 days and I've probably approved transfers for her a dozen times. I literally just opened the game and spotted her on the "I want to transfer to minsec' list. She's always on there.

I do enjoy the pandemonium of a large prison though. It can be a little frustrating when they're always mad, but at the same time the game still finds new ways to test me and my prison. There have been a lot of lessons learned and the prisoners still sometimes come up with novel ideas, though not all of them are good (like starting a fight outside my most popular staff room and kennel).

I'll have to give this a try sometime though. And in the meantime I might use the security menu to flag some prisoners so I can follow them amongst the endless sea of prisoners in my current facility.

[u/Cute-Low-621 → u/SquareCanine]

Its honestly so immersive when you happen to find 'that' prisoner you always check up on out of curiosity. Definitely glad for the flagging feature they added in the Gangs DLC, makes it much easier to keep track on the dangerous, or at the very least interesting, inmates!