Dealing with extreme contraband

[A Bag Of Bodacious Burgers]

I have a large prison with 183 inmates (about 75% are medium risk) and I'm seeing a very large amount of contraband being found within the medium section. There's never issues with it because I have metal detectors dealing with it, but I'm just wondering if there's any way I can make prisoners less keen on getting contraband in the first place. Does the policy section have any use with this problem?

[Trixi]

well, you should set your routes so, that your prisoners dont cross many rooms, as the rooms itselfs produce the contrabant.

Also the prisoners can collect contrabant thrown over the fence. so you should look, that they havent access to outdoor area next to the fence (10 squares)

also you could make a secure visitation room, instead of a normal one.

[TheXev]

One successful method I have found is to fence in your delivery areas, and turn it into a contraband sniffing/metal detector area. I have about three dogs on patrol in my area in specific sections (so the patrol is divided into large three squares), and a guard stationed in each of those patrol areas as well.

I catch a ton of contraband before it even enters my prison, reducing the chances of prisons ever getting a hold of it. I also have a double fence around my prison. I have one parameter fence, and 10m behind that, a 2nd one to stop stuff from getting tossed in.

[bellwoody]

I'm working in different way, but I've not sure it correct or not.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=693636968

This is my delivery area and it haven't sealed, so I've put more dogs to ensure most of deliveries had been sniffed by my doggies. 6 dogs in center area and 2 dog in right area.(there have 2 delivery areas)

The centeral green bubbles are contrabands had found by dogs. The blue bubbles are contrabands had found by metal dectors. For my med/min security inmates, I'm allowing them to take the cargo from delivery area, so I've put many airlocks with metal detectors between inmates zone to the road(been sealed by double layers of road gates and under snipers' watch).

Inmates going in or out their dormitories have to pass the metal dector with no exception(but still missed a lot), dogs are partoling in most of corridors that inmates have to use,let inmates non-metal contrabands had better chance to be found.

But I've not found the best solution yet. Inmates would try to dig tunnels around 5-7 days, I could bust tunnels in 100%, but the contrabands still run into my inmates from gaps I've not found or blocked.

[lissa_981]

They will always want contraband.. it's the nature of the game. keep a good 10ish square buffer zone tot he outside world to reduce thrown contarbade, eliminate visitation-- or at least use the secure booths rather then tables. add dogs to deliveries and more in the mail room and kitchen-- the largest destanations for the contabend. If possible do nightly shakedowns of those rooms, you can include the shop too if you like, and post extra gaurds,/multabel metel dedectors in workshops as that is where much of the homeade contraband comes from.

[A Bag Of Bodacious Burgers]

I got it guys. Thanks. I sealed off my deliveries and now I'm only finding about 5-10% contraband elsewhere. How do I deal with the little yellow flags? I have one that consistently appears in the middle of my road and I've searched with dogs and shakedowns but I've never found anything else. I don't really want to dismantle my toilets, and I don't see any other evidence leading to an actual escape attempt. What should I do?

[lissa_981]

It's most likly a false alet. Dogs somtimes sniff gopher holes or something. they really need to add a training program for dog's much like tazers certs, that dectrease false positives.. call it obediance training and make it a mutli session course if they want.. it would be worth it.

[Jet City Gambler]

You'll get lots of false alerts with the dogs, if you're not getting multiple flags from different handlers don't sweat it.

Also, you don't have to dismantle toilets anymore, as of a few updates ago just a dedicated toilet search will reveal a tunnel 100% of the time.

Handle it with CIs, drag one in at midnight after lockdown, then target the cells or prisoners that are hiding tools. I usually let them have their booze and cigs, especially the grey guys. There are really no detrimental effects from letting them have them, unless you're Warden Hardass.

Even with metal detectors on all cell entrances though, they still sneak in those wooden pickaxes. Bang those toilets when you find a tool, especially if it's a dorm.

[lissa_981]

^^ and cell phones. they can keep those, they are more trouble then thier are worth to confiscate. tools and wepons are another wepons though.

[A Bag Of Bodacious Burgers]

*UPDATE* The previously safe area is now filling up with flags constantly (about 9 within 8 adjacent square units) and despite my constant shakeups, there's still no tunnels to be found, with the flags still constantly popping up.

[{SNS}HeroFallenVillain]

Originally posted by TheXev:

One successful method I have found is to fence in your delivery areas, and turn it into a contraband sniffing/metal detector area. I have about three dogs on patrol in my area in specific sections (so the patrol is divided into large three squares), and a guard stationed in each of those patrol areas as well.

I catch a ton of contraband before it even enters my prison, reducing the chances of prisons ever getting a hold of it. I also have a double fence around my prison. I have one parameter fence, and 10m behind that, a 2nd one to stop stuff from getting tossed in.

This! A solid entry area will prevent the majority. Other than that, check you contraband screen to see where contraband comes from and set up metal detectors/dogs(depending on if it's metal or smelly) at its entrances as well as bottle neck areas and cell block entrances.

Keep in mind that metal detectors and dogs stop checking for several moments when they detect something so try adding extra layers of detectors/dogs in high traffic areas.

Edit: Oh, and confidential informants ftw. With a little work you can easily get 100% coverage. I usually call them in as soon I expect my new prisoner trucks to arrive in the morning so in addition to stomping contraband I also get my prisoners sorted out asap. That way any snitches, ex law or legendaries can be sorted out before they even get off the trucks lmao

[bellwoody]

I'm agree about the contrabands are inmates' needed. Impossible to take them out, but reduce is an acceptable target.

Both Dogs and metal dectors I'd planned/put them everywhere before I'd started to accept inmates.(my prisons are always full of dogs partoling everwhere, current prison have 200 dogs).
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=698507335
Above: This is my dog partols around med security dormitaries.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=698507472
Above: The airlocks with metal detectors.

I'm fixing to seal the edge gaps(although I'd never found smuggled from the edge areas, most of contrabands are coming with trucks),my prison layout have prevent the inmates to touch any inner fence/wall and never goes to the areas between inner fence and outer fence. Most of my prisoners would impossible to get close the edge of map within 10 blocks.

But another thing I'm curious, I'd made several tunnel rat traps, the outer walls is not totally sealed, only had a little gap at outer fence to cheat the rats and under snipers' firing coverage. Some areas between outer fence and inner fence had considered as "outside of prison".(couldn't be zoned)

Will contrabands throw into my prison from those "trapped outside areas" or the smugglers are only throwing contrabands from outside of the game map?
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=698506880

[warbeetle]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=696068328

Take a look at my Black Oak Correctional Facility - it has several nicely working arrangements to filter contraband:

- Separate Entrances for visitors, prisoners and deliveries making it easy to filter all that delivery zone contraband separately from the prisoners who are searched in the reception area
- Every Outside area that can be accessed by prisoners is inside a ring of buildings, thus preventing contraband thats hurled over the walls
- All contraband rooms(visitation, ...) are only accessible via special control zones with guards, dogs and metal detectors
- Every category of prisoners has preferences for certain types of contraband - control this through deployment - f.ex. low security never gets access to the kitchen and workshop in my map

You can not really control contraband with the policies - you really have to control it through building design and movement restrictions and wisely placed dogs/guards and metal detectors

[Nat3ski]

You will know you have it locked down when everyone steals 100s of spoons.

[{SNS}HeroFallenVillain]

Originally posted by warbeetle:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=696068328

Take a look at my Black Oak Correctional Facility - it has several nicely working arrangements to filter contraband:

- Separate Entrances for visitors, prisoners and deliveries making it easy to filter all that delivery zone contraband separately from the prisoners who are searched in the reception area
- Every Outside area that can be accessed by prisoners is inside a ring of buildings, thus preventing contraband thats hurled over the walls
- All contraband rooms(visitation, ...) are only accessible via special control zones with guards, dogs and metal detectors
- Every category of prisoners has preferences for certain types of contraband - control this through deployment - f.ex. low security never gets access to the kitchen and workshop in my map

You can not really control contraband with the policies - you really have to control it through building design and movement restrictions and wisely placed dogs/guards and metal detectors

I don't normally like things as clustered as that but I do like your prison. It has a certain charm to it. I especially like how you shaped your chapels like little cathedrals. Hard to see close for a lot of stuff though.

Would you mind clarifying what you mean about different levels wanting different things? How do you know that?

[warbeetle]

Thanks for the comment on my prison -- If you lika a close view try and download it and watch it in action!

"different levels wanting different things" -- Its a thing I experienced through playing:
I´ve played prison architect since around alpha 15 and have tried many different designs of prisons. I have always tried to build as big as my PC can handle. Although this prison is the biggest that really worked without a constant lag I had several before with around 200-500 prisoners. One thing i realised over the time was that when you have larger amounts of prisoners it is very likely that certain "events" or problems become more frequently like a kind of "behaviour". Introversion talked in some alphas about how they changed the "behaviour" of prisoners so that they become more "unpredictable" but you can still get certain patterns of repeated behaviour if the number of prisoners is big enough.
In that way it is that certain groups tend to have certain contraband needs in order to satisfy their behaviour!!
I know that these experiences might be completely different with other players, but i realised that if I build certain designs it would influence the behaviour of certain groups of prisoners -- In my prisons almost always only the low security prisoners dug tunnels, and it really boosted that behaviour if they got access to kitchen contraband.
Another such behaviour is, that certain programms like drug, alcohol and behavioral therapy is only used well in certain security levels - If a prisoner has no real need for alcohol or drugs, he will not try to get it as much as an addict.

-- I hope that explains a bit what I meant