Why is my prison such a mess?

[Chico]

I thought I had enough rooms and equipment to satisfy all my prisoners need, and indeed all seemed to go fine... so long as I only had min sec prisoners. The moment I started to take med and max sec, it all went south. Both of them seem to have almost always almost all of their needs at maximum, so they get angry on a daily basis and cause a lot of trouble.

I have LOTS of programs (alcoholism, drugs, parole, kitchen and workshop training...) because there always were many prisoners in queue, but now I'm not sure anymore whether I should have so many of them or not.

I'll leave you a few screenshot hoping that you can diagnose my problems. I love this game but I don't know how to handle it, and as you'll see, I don't even have that many immates :(

https://imgur.com/3tyPD5i

https://imgur.com/ym0KVYl

https://imgur.com/CW0rUSG

https://imgur.com/aUSo1lW

https://imgur.com/HwVrxCQ

https://imgur.com/mrwPGl8

[The Queen Salis]

your main problem is fog of war. fog of war is stupid

but another thing is that you didn't even think to show us their needs page.

you actually have A LOT of prisoners. not that many inmates would be around 100.

you need to look closer at the needs page and subpages - find what needs are a problem for which populations and then LOOK at their lives and why they can't get them done.

HIRE MORE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ COOKS. you want to serve 250 guys with a staff of EIGHT?

[Chico]

Hey, thanks for your answer.

As far as I know, the only effect of fog is that you, the player, can't see rooms where there's no staff; I mean, your staff won't behave any different with or without fog, right? So I keep it in my games because you can't watch closely every single room in your prison at all times when you have 300 prisoners anyway, right? Well this is the way I see it, I don't know what most players do.

I've taken a screenshot of the needs tab, but since I'm in the middle of a riot (after hours of fights and chaos) it really isn't representative of what they normally are.

https://imgur.com/LG5MMBL

You may be right about food, but it hasn't been a problem until very recently: I have 2 kitchens and 2 canteen for 192 min sec cells (usually, several immates fewer than that), and they always deliver their food in time with no problem. Then I have 1 kitchen/1 canteen for med sec, and 1/1 for max. Only the one for max sec has had some problems... but I think it's because there are not enough immates qualified to help in the kitchen. So yes, I might have too few cooks, but I thought that putting the max number of prisoners working there would compensate.

And for the rest of the needs, that's precisely whay I don't get: they seem to desperately need recreation, family or exercise, but I have plenty of visitors booths, weights, phone booths, pools, arcade machines, radios, tv... and plenty of yard, free and work/free hours in my regime. Why in the world don't they satisfy those needs when they have plenty of time and means to do it?

Edit: when I had only min sec prisoners, their needs were ALWAYS at minimum. Only in the morning had grown a bit freedom and hygiene, but a couple of hours later they would have gone to zero again.

[AleXD]

Originally posted by Agustín Bravo:

Hey, thanks for your answer.

As far as I know, the only effect of fog is that you, the player, can't see rooms where there's no staff; I mean, your staff won't behave any different with or without fog, right? So I keep it in my games because you can't watch closely every single room in your prison at all times when you have 300 prisoners anyway, right? Well this is the way I see it, I don't know what most players do.

I've taken a screenshot of the needs tab, but since I'm in the middle of a riot (after hours of fights and chaos) it really isn't representative of what they normally are.

https://imgur.com/LG5MMBL

You may be right about food, but it hasn't been a problem until very recently: I have 2 kitchens and 2 canteen for 192 min sec cells (usually, several immates fewer than that), and they always deliver their food in time with no problem. Then I have 1 kitchen/1 canteen for med sec, and 1/1 for max. Only the one for max sec has had some problems... but I think it's because there are not enough immates qualified to help in the kitchen. So yes, I might have too few cooks, but I thought that putting the max number of prisoners working there would compensate.

And for the rest of the needs, that's precisely whay I don't get: they seem to desperately need recreation, family or exercise, but I have plenty of visitors booths, weights, phone booths, pools, arcade machines, radios, tv... and plenty of yard, free and work/free hours in my regime. Why in the world don't they satisfy those needs when they have plenty of time and means to do it?

Edit: when I had only min sec prisoners, their needs were ALWAYS at minimum. Only in the morning had grown a bit freedom and hygiene, but a couple of hours later they would have gone to zero again.

How many guards do you have? Perhaps you need to ramp up your security a bit more.

[Chico]

Originally posted by Captain Nothing:

How many guards do you have? Perhaps you need to ramp up your security a bit more.

48 guards
15 armed g.
20 dog handlers

I'm afraid I'm closer to too many guards than to too few...

I set dog patrols at night around the cells blocks, because otherwise there are always several tunnels been built at any given time... Also, 1 guard stationed at every cell block at night. 1 guard stationed at every room where there are prisoners working; 1 guard and 1 armed guard patrolling the canteen at eating time, and the yard at yard time. Metal detectors everywhere and a few more dog patrols around some of these detectors on very transited areas at critical times.

I've tried to automatise as many doors as I can, while keeping open many "transit doors" to not congestionate the traffic at peak hours. Actually, I'm thinking now that maybe there are times when many prisoners have to wait too long before a guard opens a door for them from the security room... But I don't think those waiting times are that many nor that long so to prevent them to satisfy their needs.

I mean, I'm checking now, and why in the world do many of them have their hygiene bar at maximum, when every cell block has 1 shower per cell, when I set 1 shower hour in my regime, and when I even have several showers in every yard? It's absurd.

[AleXD]

Perhaps assign a few more guards to each block, 1 ain't enough. And also allow them to have more shower time.

[AleXD]

Armed Guards make the prisoners angry as well by the way, you have too many i'd say. Reduce them down to 10 or 5

[AleXD]

I'd recommend giving them a shower before they go to bed and just as they get up.

[Premu]

Overall your staff numbers seem to be very low for that size. Probably you didn't upscale your janitors, gardeners and workmen enough to cover the larger prison and more prisoners. Probably a lot of prisoners have dirty uniforms, and the prison itself is very dirty, too. Your overall numberr of guards is pretty low, too for that many prisoners, especially if you're dealing with medium and high security "customers". Another issue could be the food distribution - as soon as you have more kitchens, it can happen that one kitchen is not manned enough or that you cooks start running around the whole prison to catch some dirty trays. They might also cook the food in the wrong kitchens, so that it isn't delivered in time to the correct canteens. Try to keep the number of kitchens small, and get more cooks, too.

One additional problem you'll get with medium and high security prisoners is that you'll get gang members. Do you have many of those? These can also mess up your plans significantly if you don't manage to seperate them from the rest of the prisoners.

Furthermore, I see that you use cell quality ratings... I have a pretty bad experience with it. Prisoners who rioted will be put into bad cells which makes them more angry and thus more likely to riot again... So I always stick to identical cells for everyone.

[AleXD]

Originally posted by Premu:

Overall your staff numbers seem to be very low for that size. Probably you didn't upscale your janitors, gardeners and workmen enough to cover the larger prison and more prisoners. Probably a lot of prisoners have dirty uniforms, and the prison itself is very dirty, too. Your overall numberr of guards is pretty low, too for that many prisoners, especially if you're dealing with medium and high security "customers". Another issue could be the food distribution - as soon as you have more kitchens, it can happen that one kitchen is not manned enough or that you cooks start running around the whole prison to catch some dirty trays. They might also cook the food in the wrong kitchens, so that it isn't delivered in time to the correct canteens. Try to keep the number of kitchens small, and get more cooks, too.

One additional problem you'll get with medium and high security prisoners is that you'll get gang members. Do you have many of those? These can also mess up your plans significantly if you don't manage to seperate them from the rest of the prisoners.

Furthermore, I see that you use cell quality ratings... I have a pretty bad experience with it. Prisoners who rioted will be put into bad cells which makes them more angry and thus more likely to riot again... So I always stick to identical cells for everyone.

Much more in detail than me. I admire you.

[Chico]

Originally posted by Premu:

Overall your staff numbers seem to be very low for that size. Probably you didn't upscale your janitors, gardeners and workmen enough to cover the larger prison and more prisoners. Probably a lot of prisoners have dirty uniforms, and the prison itself is very dirty, too. Your overall numberr of guards is pretty low, too for that many prisoners, especially if you're dealing with medium and high security "customers". Another issue could be the food distribution - as soon as you have more kitchens, it can happen that one kitchen is not manned enough or that you cooks start running around the whole prison to catch some dirty trays. They might also cook the food in the wrong kitchens, so that it isn't delivered in time to the correct canteens. Try to keep the number of kitchens small, and get more cooks, too.

One additional problem you'll get with medium and high security prisoners is that you'll get gang members. Do you have many of those? These can also mess up your plans significantly if you don't manage to seperate them from the rest of the prisoners.

Furthermore, I see that you use cell quality ratings... I have a pretty bad experience with it. Prisoners who rioted will be put into bad cells which makes them more angry and thus more likely to riot again... So I always stick to identical cells for everyone.

Thanks for your answer.

I had thought about the "cooks distribution" problem. The game should allow you to set every cook to the kitchen of your choice, and same with other staff members (so if you have a couple staff/security rooms, as I do, you should be allowed to place a given guard to rest in one of them, or to man the monitors only in one of them, etc.).

Are there other rooms that you suggest to only build one of them? For example, security room.

As for the uniforms, I think I read on the wiki that, while prisoners have the need for clean clothes, they don't get angry about it. But yeah, I didn't pay much attention to janitors or gardeners... I thought, same as with the food, that prisoners could do their work (hence I have one cupbearer room for every sec type, 3 in total, with the max number of prisoners assigned to each of them).

Which ratio of guards/prisoners would you suggest when dealing with, say, 2/3 of your prisoners being min, and 1/3 being med and max sec? And which ratio of guards, armed guards, dog guards?

IIRC, I have less than a dozen gang members, and while they might've been causing trouble, I don't think it was gang related, but more because they are med/max sec. How do you distribute your immates? I mean, do you keep max sec completely isolated from the rest? Do you do that with gang members, no matter their sec type?

I might start another prison, but with fog and quality cell off. In previous games I tried to build some blocks of better quality cells (I like this idea of "rewarding" good behaviour with better cells), but I didn't have the time or pay attention to it in this one.

Anyway, regarding the first paragraph of my message, I find weird that this game is one of the best I've ever played, and at the same time you quickly find that it has a huge wasted potential, with obvious flaws on its interface, the way you are allowed to manage most things, or some systems, like the deployment schedule, that are too rigid and should/could be improved.

[Chico]

And let me ask you what I think is the key question here: why do you think many prisoners (I think especially, if not exclusively, med and max sec ones) don't get their recreation/family needs fullfilled when they have at their disposal plenty of rooms, equipment and regime time to do so?

[Jet City Gambler]

Personally, I like to use cell quality and fog of war because it provides a bit more of a management challenge. I find it lets my prison develop a bit more organically than the cookie-cutter approach. To each their own, I suppose.

One thing you might try is making a bunch of services available in your canteen, then give them a generous meal time in the morning and evening. I often have toilets, showers, weight benches, telephones, TVs, etc.

Problems arise with snitches who should be in PC getting shivved, that will kill your prison rating. From your screenshots I can't tell if you have a PC area set up. As far as gang members go, I just classify them all as super max and put them in their own isolated wing. They don't attend reform programs or go to a job so having them in general population doesn't help your prison.

Your visitation screenshot is kind of weird -- those isolation booths are meant to be stuck together in a line, so civilians can come in from one door and prisoners from the other. I'm not sure if it works the way you have it, just the regular tables might be better.

[Premu]

Originally posted by Agustín Bravo:

And let me ask you what I think is the key question here: why do you think many prisoners (I think especially, if not exclusively, med and max sec ones) don't get their recreation/family needs fullfilled when they have at their disposal plenty of rooms, equipment and regime time to do so?

Hm, one potential issue here might actually be the effective time to do so. It's nice to have a common room in your prison in which the prisoners can get their recreation needs fulfilled - but if they need to walk quite a long time, they might not have enough left to finish their activity. That's a nasty pitfall I had already with a large prison.

As you have only one one hour-block of pure free time it's most likely simply not enough. They could use the two two-hour blocks for work/free time, but if you have a shop prisoners prefer to work if possible.

How do your cells look like? I personally try to fill them with enough stuff so that they can fulfill as many needs as possible - they have their own shower for hygene, a TV for recreation, a chair for comfort, a praying mat for spirituality and a weights bench for excercise. I also have one hour lockdown before and after sleep - so that the prisoners will be in their cells for two hours in which they can use their amneties without the need to walk long distances.

[Divine]

280 prisoners isnt really a lot lol XD

i regularly play with over a thousand.

roleplaying my prison as some kind of gulag with failure conditions turned off. everyone is in giant dorms and money is made by encouraging prisoners to kill one another so that i can get more of them everyday with a nice sum for every new inmate XD

[Chico]

Originally posted by Jet City Gambler:

One thing you might try is making a bunch of services available in your canteen, then give them a generous meal time in the morning and evening. I often have toilets, showers, weight benches, telephones, TVs, etc.

The issue with the regime is that you need to set up some 4-straight-hour-schedule in order to establish some programs (parole for example). So this lets you less freedom to experiment with the schedule as some of you have proposed. I'll think about it anyway.

Originally posted by Jet City Gambler:

Problems arise with snitches who should be in PC getting shivved, that will kill your prison rating. From your screenshots I can't tell if you have a PC area set up. As far as gang members go, I just classify them all as super max and put them in their own isolated wing. They don't attend reform programs or go to a job so having them in general population doesn't help your prison.

A PC area is the last major thing I built. I put in there every snitch/ex guard/ex law enforcement I spot. As for gang members, I guess I'll do what some of you said and place all of them in an isolated supermax area without working rooms.

Originally posted by Jet City Gambler:

Your visitation screenshot is kind of weird -- those isolation booths are meant to be stuck together in a line, so civilians can come in from one door and prisoners from the other. I'm not sure if it works the way you have it, just the regular tables might be better.

I didn't plan my prison THAT well from the beginning (I always end up improvising a lot because my planning skills suck :( ), so the visitors came from god knows where to the visitation room, and I didn't know if there was a problem with them using the same door as prisoners (considering I always have metal detectors in every door). One thing I can tell you is that my min sec visitation room was a paradise for smuggling, even when I had metal det., a stationed guard, and a dog patrol just by the door, and all phones taped.

Originally posted by Premu:

Hm, one potential issue here might actually be the effective time to do so. It's nice to have a common room in your prison in which the prisoners can get their recreation needs fulfilled - but if they need to walk quite a long time, they might not have enough left to finish their activity. That's a nasty pitfall I had already with a large prison.

As you have only one one hour-block of pure free time it's most likely simply not enough. They could use the two two-hour blocks for work/free time, but if you have a shop prisoners prefer to work if possible.

How do your cells look like? I personally try to fill them with enough stuff so that they can fulfill as many needs as possible - they have their own shower for hygene, a TV for recreation, a chair for comfort, a praying mat for spirituality and a weights bench for excercise. I also have one hour lockdown before and after sleep - so that the prisoners will be in their cells for two hours in which they can use their amneties without the need to walk long distances.

I'm afraid I use the basic cell template from the quick build menu. I might make my own and add some of those things. When you think about it, you're right about my guys having to walk long distances to many places. Add a few minutes waiting for doors to open, a few minutes waiting to the weights or the chair or whatever to get free and you have many prisoners without material time to fullfill some needs.

When I start another prison I'll have to give a try to the one-kitchen approach, although that'll force me to place every canteen more or less close to it, otherwise I'll have a similar problem with cooks walking long distances to serve meals.

Thanks to both of you for your answers.