Prison just sitting there

I've been developing a prison for a while, and something weird is going on: Nothing is happening!

For the first day or so, I kept getting TODO: Escort Prisoner to Cell in the Tasks list, but the guards would just move prisoners around their cells. That finally stopped, but now they don't do anything. The prisoners' needs just keep growing & growing, and they're not doing anything to decrease them. At Eat and Freetime, they just wander around their cells. The cooks don't prepare food; it's like they're on strike or something. Pretty soon I'm probably going to have a riot! I've tried messing with the Deployment tab & making a new prison, bit neither really did anything.

Does anyone know how to fix this?

Solution 1:

Part of your problem appears to be that your Canteen is not designated as a Canteen room type, so as far as the game is concerned you have a big room with tables benches and serving tables next to the kitchen, but no Canteen. The cooks aren't cooking anything because they don't have a Canteen to cook for. Likewise the inmates are not eating because they don't have a Canteen to get food from.

As for them not going to the Yard, Showers, Common Room, etc during free time make sure that there is a path from their cells to those areas that does not require them to go through Staff Only areas. If they have to go through Staff Only areas they need to wait for a guard to escort them, if the free-time period is too short that might not happen before the period is over.

Solution 2:

Apparently, the best way to fix this is to make a new prison. For the first few days-I am currently on game day 9-it was pretty much the same problem. I'm thinking that I didn't have enough free guards or maybe that it was just a bug. Anyway, the problem seems to have solved itself; Prisoners go to the Shower, Canteen, & Yard, the Guards escort them there, food is prepared, etc.