Is there any benefit to accepting high risk prisoners?

Solution 1:

At present I would argue that there are no long term benefits to accepting higher risk inmates, although there is a small short-term benefit.

Alpha 30 changed the way you get paid for your prisoners. You now get a fixed $150 per day for each prisoner regardless of their security level. You get a larger one time payment for higher-level prisoners but after that you receive the same $150 you would receive for a minimum security prisoner. Because of this there is not really a risk/reward trade off like there used to be when you got paid more for higher levels of prisoners, just more risk.

I usually start by only accepting minimum security prisoners. Once you have things set up medium security prisoners usually are not too much trouble as long as you keep their needs satisfied and any prisoners with a "Snitch" or "Ex law enforcement" reputation in protective custody away from them in. Maximum security prisoners on the other had can be a big headache. Especially if you get a "Legendary" prisoner in, they will cause problems; you will most likely have deaths, eventually your guards will kill him and/or he will kill some of them.

If you need some quick cash you might want to accept some maximum security prisoners since you get $1000 each for them (as opposed to $300/$500 for minimum/medium) but long-term I would avoid them unless you want to increase the challenge of running your prison.

Solution 2:

As of Alpha 15

You now receive a varying amount of money per prisoner, depending on their risk level.

• A low risk prisoner yields only $50 per day.
• A medium risk prisoner yields $100 per day.
• A high risk prisoner yields $150 per day.

Do note that this is subject to change, as this is a key factor in balancing - higher risk prisoners inevitably cause more destruction and as such also cost more in maintenance.

Alpha <= 14

There is no financial benefit. Currently, the different prisoner risk levels only affect your difficulty, and thus your bragging rights if you get a working prison going. If you can get a good prison for high risk prisoners working, you're pretty much good to go for the next updates!

Do note that this is still an early Alpha. This needs a lot of balancing to get just right (because the more violent prisoners naturally cost more), and an arbitrary amount right now would be prone to abuse by, say, parking prisoners in the delivery area to get easy money.

For now, all prisoners result in the same amount of money, and cause varying amounts of mayhem.