[Suggestion]Add disadvantages of Solitary

[Yanmarka]

As you added Policy in Alpha 13, players can now decide wether to run a prison with hard punishments or be a bit nicer. However, I think this system is far not balced yet. And one thing that needs to be added are disadvanteges of Solitary.
Why?
Well, at first I think everything should have a disadvantage. Players will now either set high punishments, as this gets the prisoners supressed, but they should also think about not setting it to high. It is also more realistic.
What kind of disadvantages?
Well, you can just have a quick lock at the Wikipedia article of Solitary confinement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solitary_confinement) and you'll find enough. Some examples would be "increased sensitivity to stimuli, hallucinations, and other changes in perception, as well as cognitive problems including memory loss, difficulty thinking, and impulsiveness." as well as increased aggression, more violence, escape tries or hunger strike.

[Xoligy]

As you added Policy in Alpha 13, players can now decide wether to run a prison with hard punishments or be a bit nicer. However, I think this system is far not balced yet. And one thing that needs to be added are disadvanteges of Solitary.
Why?
Well, at first I think everything should have a disadvantage. Players will now either set high punishments, as this gets the prisoners supressed, but they should also think about not setting it to high. It is also more realistic.
What kind of disadvantages?
Well, you can just have a quick lock at the Wikipedia article of Solitary confinement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solitary_confinement) and you'll find enough. Some examples would be "increased sensitivity to stimuli, hallucinations, and other changes in perception, as well as cognitive problems including memory loss, difficulty thinking, and impulsiveness." as well as increased aggression, more violence, escape tries or hunger strike.

I tried a high solitary policy and noticed there was a disadvantage to it, but i didnt fully test it out. THe disadvantage is that there needs do no get met, so really they should start to fight when they come out but i guess the suppress mode is counter acting that. There does need to be additional reasons not to abuse it though your right, its a new feature and will no doubt be tweeked in the future.

[rabid squirrel]

It may contribute to released prisoners reoffending, which would lower your score. That is when they introduce re-education, paroles and overhaul the scoring system.

[DonRiver]

How about some elementary mental health simulation? Whacking your troublesome prisoners into Solitary every time they don't put the toilet seat down may make your prison subdued and easy to manage, but you'd be causing mental and emotional damage to your inmates and their behaviour becomes 'brittle', they'll normally do the 'correct' thing instead of pushing the boundaries routinely but as soon as there's any disruption they'll snap and behave in extremely bad ways.

I live in Tasmania, and visited the silent prison wing at Port Arthur. This was where the inmates were forbidden from talking to anyone - they had to wear masks when they left their (solitary) cells, they could only communicate by pulling a cord to ring a bell. There's a really sad chapel in the wing where the pews are made from little cells - an arrangement of doors and partitions means each prisoner can only see the chaplain. It was an extreme experiment in solitary confinement - I seem to remember references to a London prison, Pentonville perhaps, which also had a similar philosophy but less thoroughly applied. As I remember this wing ran like this for a few years then was closed down, as it was found to be doing more harm than good.

[xander]

I think that the justification (as per the last release video) is that players should have the option to be right wing crypto-fascist authoritarians, or left wing bleeding-heart hippies. Make a Club Fed style prison, keep all of your prisoners happy, and nothing goes wrong. Make a Maricopa County hell-hole, suppress crap out of your prisoners, and nothing goes wrong. This represents the choice between "playing good" and "playing evil" (or something like that).

It is, perhaps, not the most realistic model, but it makes sense as a gameplay mechanic, so I am inclined to go with it.

xander

[bassfader]

I tried (really hard actually xD) to play "evil" and had the solitary times pretty high for tools, attacks, weapons and escape attempts, but this just made the prisoners drive nuts. I noticed their needs didn't get satisfied, so they started fighting all the time even though they've been suppressed, and it got worse every day.

And it had another major disadvantage: I barely had any workers in my workshop, and therefor was broke soon.

But I think there's just some balancing missing regarding the effects of things like solitary confinement, a prisoner being suppressed and having needs, etc.. So I think (or hope ) this will work much better once all features are ready and the balancing has started.