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[Girlinhat]

So is it bad that I'm installing the game now, and I want to see what I can achieve with an old medieval prison?  Like, just one big holding cell for 20 guys, and armed guards to keep them suppressed.  Worst approval rating ever, but the most cost effective...

[ductape]

Should be fun. I think holding cells work except for the privacy and sleep thing. I tried putting beds in there but not sure it helped, they didnt seem to use them. There is a mod that looks really cool, its a WWII mod that has you running a Nazi German prison camp, it mods the cells so they dont need walls or doors and makes the just 1 square, so you can basically just make the cell the prisoners bed, then you can have a bunkhouse that works.

In my last prison, i tried a few ways of killing off troubling prisoners like I would in DF, though I havent figured out a reliable way of killing off the bad guys yet. I think maybe you could stick a bunch in a room of solitary cells with no doors, assign then to solitary for 24 hours, then dismantle the main door and brick it up. They will come out of their cells and kill each other. Havent tried it but it might be a brutal and effective way of offing those pesky murderers.

[Girlinhat]

Could you just put them in a room, brick them in, and just... leave them?  Do they die?  Do you still get paid for them?

[Descan]

Uhm, about your cleaning thing, you can set the outdoors to be Staff Only, so prisoners won't go out there.

[Zangi]

Set up road gates and don't allow prisoners near the edge/on the road with the prisoner logistics setting.

Beds worked in holding cells, at least in the last version.  They tend to only use em at normal sleeping hours.  Only issue is privacy.

[nenjin]

You can build a medieval hell hole of a prison. No food, no family visitations, ect...

The problem is as people start dying (and they will die a lot once fights start, which will be always) it counts against your prison management score. If it gets low enough, the prison is taken from. Do REALLY bad, and you end up playing yourself in your own prison. I don't know if there's any way to opt out of that.

[miauw62]

You can build a medieval hell hole of a prison. No food, no family visitations, ect...

The problem is as people start dying (and they will die a lot once fights start, which will be always) it counts against your prison management score. If it gets low enough, the prison is taken from. Do REALLY bad, and you end up playing yourself in your own prison. I don't know if there's any way to opt out of that.

There is, or was when I last checked.

[puke]

Possibly relevant to your interests:

http://www.wired.com/2015/01/josh-begley-prison-map/

[Girlinhat]

So... my holding-cell prison worked really well.  Like, REALLY well.  My biggest bottleneck was actually phones, of all things.  I could produce enormous amounts of food for prisoners, and stuff them into large enclosures of just beds, and got actually ridiculously high ratings.  It was more successful than actual prisons I've designed.  It fell apart when a riot broke into the armory, turns out we carry an infinite rack of shotguns, but with this new knowledge I think I could design something VERY stable and productive.

[jhxmt]

[My prison] was more successful than actual prisons I've designed.  It fell apart when a riot broke into the armory, turns out we carry an infinite rack of shotguns[...]

This seems like the best possible definition of success. 

[JimboM12]

So... my holding-cell prison worked really well.  Like, REALLY well.  My biggest bottleneck was actually phones, of all things.  I could produce enormous amounts of food for prisoners, and stuff them into large enclosures of just beds, and got actually ridiculously high ratings.  It was more successful than actual prisons I've designed.  It fell apart when a riot broke into the armory, turns out we carry an infinite rack of shotguns, but with this new knowledge I think I could design something VERY stable and productive.

...Now i feel like a shmuck for making a meticulously planned out prison using air-locked entrances, double-layered fencing, constant dog patrols across the cell blocks for contraband and tunnels, outer fencing patrols to catch tunnelers, metal detectors at every major intersection, locked down kitchens using staff door airlocks, locked down.. pretty much everywhere. Oh and mandatory yard time so my dog patrols in the yard can sniff you once per day. Oh and random shakedowns whenever i see someone with drugs.

All that work when a giant holding cell with beds could have kept the masses stable 

The only problem i had with this prison though was a lack of shower space cuz assigning shower rooms to cell blocks isnt in the game yet.

[Girlinhat]

Holding cells skirt around a lot of the rules.  They don't seem to ever tunnel out of them because it's not their toilet.  And if there's a 'lockdown' punishment, they don't go anywhere and stay in place in handcuffs forever.  The amount of contraband is also drastically lower, as they don't have anywhere to store it.  And, surprisingly, violence is down, as fewer guards can watch over more prisoners in tighter spaces.

I had the most trouble with Privacy, but I found putting phones in individual little booths with a door gave them -just- enough time to be content while they called their families.  Food, sleep, bowel, and bladder were all well within green limits.  Freedom and recreation were tricky, but that's because I didn't plan for the 150+ prisoners.  Food was also a bit of an issue, but I went overkill and did fine.

The main thing is to GO BIG.  Big holding cell, big shower, big kitchen... just enormous rooms.

[Aklyon]

So big as in medium start, or large start?

[Girlinhat]

I did a small start and packed in like... 180 before it broke, but I still had plenty of unused space.

[Yolan]

This is the next thing for them to do really. To actually give us a reason for all the extreme security we can design. I also have made a few prisons with extreme security.

For example:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Double walled perimeter with patrol route in-between.
Air-locks on both entering and exiting roads for a total of four sliding road gates.
Air lock into the prison grounds.
Air lock inside the prison building.
Air lock into the hall-way connecting the various cell blocks.
Air locks into each cell block, each which contains its own unique small canteen and yard so groups of 20 prisoners are kept separate.
Cameras everywhere.
Dogs patrolling the grounds around the cell blocks sniffing for tunnels.
Time-based guard schedule so there is always a guard watching any major activity (eating, showering, yard, laundry).
Constant patrols of each block up and down the cells.
Regular cell-block searches.
Metal detectors into and out of the cell block and main building (scans new prisoners, and people going to-from visitation).

And so on....

Basically, everything I could think of for holding a mix of medium-maximum security guys.

Unfortunately most of this is still really not necessary. The prisoners just don't really have any intelligence when it comes to organizing break-outs. While we now have more crazy violent prisoners, and pretty much guaranteed murder of any snitchers around other prisoners, we have yet to see smart, strategizing prisoners who we need to fail-safe the prison against in order to justify the above kind of set-up. I hope they get around to addressing this over the course of this year, but I think it will take some work as AI can be tricky. Also, they need still some foundational design going into things like relationships between particular characters, and personalites/corruptibility for staff etc.