I'm really perplexed...

[TooDAMNMuch]

yeah i know what you mean, trust me though, this is a real hell hole of a prison anyway, you really couldn't be let out of your cell to any other functional rooms without passing at least 1-3 metal detectors, now it'll be more like 20-40+ though

[mad_scientist]

What I do to help prevent them from stashing contraband in their cell is to modify the regime to always have a yard slot after eating.
That at least gives the guards enough time to catch up with them after they steal from the canteen and get detected by a metal detector.

However, the guards should be able to yell at a prisoner to get them to stop. And if they keep running, they get punished.

[tswaters]

I shakedown every night.... metal detectors do /some/ good but if I see a slew of them going off and no contraband to show for it it'll be a shakedown at around 11pm ( lest they tunnel out at 3am :S )

[gazza911]

Why not just make it that if a metal detector is set off, any jail doors leading out of that room that are set to either DoorModeNormal or DoorModeOpen will change to DoorModeShut until the prisoner(s) have been searched, at which point they'll change back to their previous state.

This will:

• Stop more people from going into the room - when they eventually go in, the metal detector will be fully functional again
• Stop prisoners currently in the room leaving until they're searched (meaning they can't hide the contraband elsewhere in the prison)
• Prove that any contraband found in the room after the doors have closed, come from one of the prisoners in that room - you'll know which cell(s) you need to search

[McEdy]

I personally would prefer a system with barriers (1x1 and 2x1 ones) which are more expensive than the metal detectors and which control each prisoner.
There could be a guard which does this job. The prisoners would have to wait before it their turn to be controled. And it wouldn't be op because it takes quite a while to do this so you would either have to create multiple barriers or to create multiple holding cells / cell blocks. It would really improve the need of guards because at the moment you don't have to have much. They're only good for opening doors, because if there is a riot the fuck up like shit xD And you don't have to have thousands of them only for these small fights here and there