Introversion

i'm 4 days into the game and have 24 inmates (8 per day), all in a holding cell while i complete cell block A. my current max is 0, although my holding cell is quite nice and can probably hold around 40 before it starts having problems. about half way though the day i noticed my check list says i'll be getting 66 more inmates tomorrow that's almost 3 times my current population. i'm out of money and i don't have the space for even half that yet.

Yeah its the current major flaw/bug/intentional design at the moment. They just keep coming regardless. But there is a workaround if you want to steady the population.

Either remove and then place a new delivery 'room' from the roadside to inside the prison (the prisoner buses won't drop anyone off then) or edit your save file.

There's been plenty of discussion on this bug on here so have a search around ;D

my problem wasn't that they kept sending me a new shipment everyday, it was that they wanted me to quadruple my inmate population in a single day so early in the game when i couldn't even house what i had. i was going from 24 to 90 prisoners during the transition from day 4 to day 5 of the game.

That issue has been raised a few times before. The main culprit is a randomised number of inmates being sent to the prison after day 2. For whatever reason if you save the game and then go straight back into it the incoming prisoner count goes back to 8 for the next 2 days and then starts to randomly increase again.