Escapees Get Stuck Then Everything Is Too Dangerous To Work

[Vonron]

Whilst expanding my latest prison last night I completed three large new cell blocks before completing the extended perimeter wall. This led to my workforce of prisoners heading out into the new blocks to clean the new cell blocks (not yet designated as anything - just empty foundations) and, understandably, the prisoners took the chance to make a break for it.

I captured the majority of the would be escapees, who then got stuck. My prison policy was set to search all prisoners and their cells for any infringements (including attempted escape), so the prisoners were stopped in the place they were caught, in handcuffs and with the search icon next to them. However, none of the guards would actually search them (I tried dogs and armed guards too), even when manually instructed to do so. Moreover, as some of the escapees were caught near the blueprint for the perimeter wall the new wall could never be finished as some blocks were marked "too dangerous" even though the prisoners had already been caught. This led to a cycle of more prisoners trying to escape, and also got some of my staff stuck in a loop trying to get to the blueprint for the new perimeter wall or past the area in which the captured escapees were.

As resolutions I tried a lockdown, a shakedown, authorising lethal force (the guards wouldn't shoot the captured escapees - understandably) and changing the policy of searching prisoners. Nothing seemed to work, although eventually (and for no reason I could see) the guards finally brought in the escapees after a few days. Far from solving the issue though, the area in which the prisoners had been caught remained "too dangerous" and the "too dangerous" areas then spread without reason to seemingly any square in which any staff member wanted to work (cleaning, gardening, building, canteen work etc.). Unfortunately, therefore, I had to abandon the prison (it did eventually allow me to sell the prison thankfully).

[5hifty]

Try setting a new job for them. Click on each of the prisoners and then click on a cell or holding cell (which will make that their new cell). This should give the guards a new job to move them to it. It sometimes break some of the problems guards have.

[dekkerss]

Have had a similar experience to this, save your game, and reload your prison, that it what fixed it for me..

Hope it helps, Dex