| INdex

| WelcomE Launch Screen The Game Main Menu Screen Free Play Mode
Challenge Mode
Prison Construction
The Main Interface
Build Panel
Building / Room Pop-up Panel
VITAL STATISTICS

Prison Management
Finance Panel
Guard Panel
Guard Pop-up Panel
Prisoner Panel
Prisoner Pop-up Panel
General Staff Panel
General Staff Pop-up Panel
Challenge Panel
Parole Review
Options
Getting Started
How To Begin Building
Running A Successful Prison

| Welcome to Prison Tycoon 2 Maximum Security

| Prison Tycoon 2 Maximum Security is a worthy successor to the best-selling Prison Tycoon. PT2 follows in its predecessor's footsteps, allowing you to build and run your very own correctional facility from the comfort of your own home, but now with even greater attention to detail and realism! PT2 uses 3 REAL US penitentiaries; Angola, Leavenworth and McNeil Island, as its inspiration. The landscapes are designed to closely match the real locations and every effort has been made to ensure that the prison buildings have an authentic look and feel.
Control the layout of your prison buildings and the arrangement of the rooms and facilities within them. Place dormitories and cellblocks, mess halls and gymnasiums, but don't expect to be able to build death row right away.
When you begin you will have a low security rating and must, with effort and managerial skill, improve your prison, maintain inmate discipline and increase your security to maximum. As time passes more inmates will arrive and you must deal with each new influx as they step off the prison bus, all of them needing to be housed and fed.
Raise funds for the upkeep of your inmates, staff and facilities by building on-site factories where your inmates can work. Rehabilitate offenders by allowing them to educate themselves while in prison, or discuss their issues with the prison Therapist.
Have Fun and Enjoy Prison Tycoon 2 Maximum Security!

| Launch Screen

Once installed the Launch Screen should appear. There are five main options on this screen. | PLAY UNINSTALL MANUAL QUIT Setting Display Driver

Click this to launch the game.
If you wish to remove the game from your computer, click the Uninstall button and follow the instructions.
Click this button to bring up a manual for the game. (You are reading it now).
Exit back to Windows.
In the top left of the screen is the display driver settings where you can select your display driver and screen resolution. The display driver normally does not need to be altered unless you have more than one video board installed. The screen resolution allows you to choose from a selection of resolutions to play the game in.

Once you have installed PT2 it will be added to your Start Programs Menu. Click Start on the Windows Task bar and then select Programs, Prison Tycoon 2 to start the game.

| The Game

Main Menu Screen
The first screen in the game is the Main Menu screen. There are three options to choose from.
The first, depicted by the prison bus - will take you to Free play Mode, the second, the stack of documents - to Challenge Mode, the third, a diskette - will Load a Saved Game, and finally, the fourth, the sturdy wooden doors - will Quit Prison Tycoon 2.

Free Play Mode
In Free Play Mode you get to choose which of the three prison sites you wish to develop. All 3 are based on actual US prisons. From west to east, on the map, they are:

McNeil Island:
Location: Steilacoom, Wash.
Year opened: 1875
Inmate population: 908
Interesting Facts: McNeil Island is 2.25 miles wide and 3 miles long, and it's the oldest prison in the Northwest. The remote Washington state prison is the last prison in America, located on an island that's only accessible by boat or helicopter. Charles Manson was an inmate here from 1961 to 1966.

Leavenworth:
Location: Leavenworth, Kan.
Year opened: 1906
Inmate population: 1,642
Interesting Facts: Leavenworth's walls are 40 feet high and extend 40 feet below ground. Robert Stroud, "The Birdman of Alcatraz," spent 30 years at Leavenworth, and this is where he gained worldwide fame as a bird expert. Beside the federal prison at Leavenworth, there's also a military prison at Ft. Leavenworth, KS, they are not the same facility.

Angola:
Location: Angola, La.
Year opened: 1835
Inmate population: 5,108
Interesting Facts: Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola is America's largest maximum-security prison. The prison sits on 18,000 acres of farmland-- corn and soybeans are the primary crops. It also has a herd of 1,500 cattle. Angola is the only prison in America that offers a college degree program on prison grounds. The site was originally a plantation worked by slaves taken from the African country of Angola, hence the name.
Clicking on any one of the site thumbnails will take you there and allow you to start building. In Free Play Mode you can construct your prison without time constraints and with plenty of funds. This is a good way to familiarize yourself with the game to begin with and a useful way to practice your skills before you attempt to complete some of the more difficult scenarios in the Challenge Mode.
An EXIT sign in the bottom center of the screen will return you to the Main Menu.

Challenge Mode
This screen displays a panel containing information on available scenarios. The basis of the Challenge Mode is that you are presented with a pre-determined scenario and posed a challenge to construct a prison within certain parameters such as limited time or available funds, etc. The first one available is nice and easy, but they get progressively harder as you go along.

The small left and right arrows, located immediately beneath the challenge thumbnail, allow you to cycle through the available challenges. Between and below them is a message from the local authorities in your area describing the nature of the challenge being set. In the bottom left and right corners of the screen are 2 more buttons. The left takes you back to the Main Menu screen, and the right one takes you to the selected challenge.

| Prison Construction

| The Main Interface When you first enter either Challenge or Free Play Mode you will be presented with a brief cut-scene animation and an overview of the particular landscape. The assigned plot will be a large, empty, rectangle of concrete surrounded by a security perimeter fence.
You can move around the 3D world using the mouse. Move the onscreen cursor to the edge of the screen and the view will start to scroll. Move it away from the edge and scrolling will stop. To rotate the view, hold down the mouse wheel or middle mouse button and move the mouse. The view will rotate with the mouse movement. To move the view up and down, roll the mouse wheel.
If you do not have a wheel mouse, then holding down Ctrl and moving the mouse will rotate the view. Holding down Shift and moving the mouse will move the view up and down.
Your first priority will be to construct some accommodation for your arriving prisoners, either a Dormitory or a Cellblock, whatever is appropriate for your security level.
At the bottom of the screen is a long bar containing various buttons and panels of information that keep you up to date with progress of your prison and allow you to access the various building and management features of the game.

| The long thin window, top and center of the panel, is for the display of text messages, updating you on the status of your prison with important information (clicking on the text panel will bring up the Message History Panel showing all messages received so far). The first two buttons on the left of the panel are : Build and Management. The functions accessible from these buttons are discussed in detail below. Right next to them are 2 smaller buttons on above the other:

| Clicking this button at any time will put the entire prison into "Lockdown". In this state all the inmates will be forced to return to their cells and buildings will be locked until you decide otherwise. When your facility is in lockdown, this will be indicated by an alert status banner immediately above the main interface. Clicking the button again deactivates lockdown.
| This is the highest alert state achievable. In "Riot Mode" all your guards don full body armor and arm themselves with the heaviest weapons available to them in the nearest armory. Use this facility with caution and only when absolutely necessary. When your facility is in riot mode, this will be indicated by an alert status banner immediately above the main interface. To exit riot mode, click on the button again.

From left to right the other icons on the interfaces are as follows : Current date and time in game terms; total funds; total inmate population and inmate capacity (separated by a slash); security level; time control strip (paused / normal / fast / very fast); and Options. The "Certificate" icon, top right of the message panel, signifies Prison Rating. The horizontal bar that extends from it is an indicator of how successful you are. The longer the bar the better. The fewer fights/deaths and the happier your prison population, the longer this bar will be.

| Build Panel The Build Panel allows you to place structures in the environment. The icons along the top of the panel let you choose the sort of building you want from the following categories:

Accommodation: Dormitories, Cellblocks of various sizes and Death row. You must provide sufficient accommodation or un-housed convicts will escape.
Amenities: Exercise Yards, Amenity Buildings for rooms such as Libraries, Classrooms and Gymnasiums; and Prison Chapels. These sorts of installations will provide your prisoners with healthy outlets and diversions, reduce the probability of inmate violence and in some cases improve their chances of full rehabilitation. For your prison to have a Chaplain, you must place a Chapel, these are found in this section.
Administration: Offices and managerial services. Several of your staff, most notably janitorial and maintenance, originate from rooms that can be placed within the Admin building.
Services: Mess halls and other support services such as the Therapist and Hospital facilities. Neglect these necessities at your peril.
Factories: Units providing employment for inmates and income for your prison.
Security: These buildings contain your surveillance equipment, armories and provide bases for your security personnel. In addition to guards, PT2 features prison guard dogs and in this section you will also find Kennels to house them.
Towers & Fences: Additional security measures for you to employ at your discretion. An additional Prison Guard is added to your Security staff for each Guard Tower that you place.
The thumbnail image displayed in the panel shows the building currently selected next to its pertinent data and description. To cycle through the available buildings in each category use the left and right arrows below.
As you cycle through the available models (those currently in RED are unavailable until you have raised your security level) they attach themselves to your cursor and change along with the thumbnail image. You can rotate the building by clicking the right mouse button. Once you have placed a structure you will need to build rooms and facilities inside it. These are where your prisoners will live, eat, sleep, work, exercise, and your staff will be based, etc.
To place a room or furnishing you simply click on the roof of the building and it will disappear. Then click on the main Build icon again. The build panel will appear in "Interior Mode". As with placing buildings, the rooms and furnishings are selected via the left and right arrows. Place the selected room in the interior of the building in exactly the same way as you placed the building itself in the prison. Some parts of the building interiors cannot be built on. This is for common sense reasons such as access to exits and other integral areas. You have to use your ingenuity and skill to work around these.

Some buildings present you with multiple floors. When this happens you can control the floor that you build on with the gadget that appears at the right hand end of the main interface bar. Its controls are very simple. They allow you to move up and down through the floors with the up and down arrows, to toggle between the 5 interior cameras located one in each corner of the interior space of the building and the birds-eye view by pressing the camera button or the "c" key. You can pan left and right with the cameras by using the mouse. To exit the building click the open door button or press the "e" key.
Demolition: To demolish a placed building, object or room, click the rectangular button with the sledgehammer icon. This will put you into Demolition Mode. A hammer appears in the thumbnail area of the panel and you are free to destroy (remove) any room or placed item within a building. If used on the exterior of the building itself you will demolish it and ALL of its contents. In case of accidental selection, a confirmation box will appear, allowing you to cancel the demolition or to proceed. To exit Demolition Mode use the left or right arrow to select a new room or building, etc.
The "X" button will close the panel (alternatively you can press the "space bar"). The "grab strip" along the top allows you to take hold of the panel with your cursor and move it around at your convenience. Both features are common to most of the panels described below.

Building/Room Pop-up Panel
When you right click on one of your prison buildings, or one of the rooms inside it, a pop up panel appears:

Building / Room Info: Alongside the thumbnail image of the building / room and its description is the date it was built, construction cost, floor surface area / footprint in square meters and number of floors (naturally, in the case of rooms, this will always be 1).
Dynamic Data: In the bottom right of the panel are factors that can change over time dependant upon your actions and game criteria: Security level of the building / room, the numbers of staff and prisoners at the present time, running costs for the upkeep of the building / room. This expenditure can be toggled down to save cash at the expense of a reduction of standards, or toggled up to improve them. Beneath that, there is a percentile measure of the general condition of the place, from 0 to 100. Keep a frequent eye on this as it is your best indicator as to whether or not you are maintaining your facilities properly.

| This button opens a drop-down roster displaying a list of the building's current occupants, be they staff members or inmates, and an assortment of useful info and stats about them. Clicking on any individual in this roster will focus in on them and open a pop up panel displaying information about them.
| Clicking this button at any time will put this particular building into "Lockdown". In this state all the inmates will be forced to return to their cells and building will be locked until you decide otherwise. When an individual building is in lockdown, this will be indicated above its thumbnail image in the top left corner or the panel. Clicking the button again will deactivate lockdown on that particular building.

| VITAL STATISTICS

| Real Prison People Prison Tycoon 2 Maximum Security strives for the greatest realism possible in a Prison simulation. To that end we have attributed a number of Vital Statistics to the people who will ultimately inhabit your penitentiary. Not only are the inmates subject to these positive and negative factors, the guards and staff have essential needs and these influence their behavior and efficiency as well.

| Health: A measure of physical health and/or damage incurred due to injury. If this falls to zero the individual dies. Health will fall, mainly due to violence, but may be subject to other factors. A fitness regime and good medical care will ensure that individuals remain fit and healthy.
| Illness: In the crowded conditions that are prison life, it is all too easy to fall ill. Many factors may influence this but primarily poor diet and the use of contraband drugs and the most significant. A prisoner that is too ill to participate in activities or work will only decline, suffering increased damage to his health until he recieves medical attention or dies.
| Boredom: Prison life is dull. That's just the way it is. The longer someone is kept in such a place the more frustrated they become. A bored prisoner is more likely to resort to anger and violence than one with something constructive to do with his time. Provide facilities to aleviate boredom and your prison will run a lot more smoothly.
| Hunger: Self explainatory. Everyone needs food on a daily basis. If catering facilities are inadequate to the demand, prepare for trouble.
| Anger: It is virtually inevitable that incarcerated individuals will become frustrated and such things lead to heightened levels of anger. If someone gets sufficiently angry he'll pick a fight and lash out. Some people seem to have ben born with a short fuse, but even the most volatile can be pacifed to a certain extent.
| Rehabilitation: This statistic relates only to your inmates. It is a measure of their willingness to better themselves and "go straight" once they complete their sentence. An inmate with a high rehabilitation score has worked hard, studied and has kept out of trouble while incarcerated. Still, some may fall prey to the temptation of contraband and suffer a relapse. Ultimately, the rehabilitation of as many prisoners as possible should be your goal. Your reputation will be greatly enhanced and rich incentives are available in the form of charitable donations if it is proven that you can do so.

| Prison Management

| Finance Panel The Management panel is effectively five panels in one. They are accessible via the icons at the top of the panel and are: Finance, Guards, Prisoners, General Staff and Challenge. The Challenge button will be un-clickable in Free Play Mode as it only relates to Challenge Mode. By default, when you first click the Management icon on the main interface, it opens with your Financial Information on display. The entries are as follows:

Total Funds: Your current cash total.
Total Money In: The running total of cash that has entered your vault since you began building this prison.
Total Money Out: The running total of cash that has been spent since you began building this prison.
Timescales: These 3 small buttons located in the bottom left of the panel, switch the display timescale in the following manner: a running total, statistics for the past month, and for the past quarter year.
In the middle of the panel, a breakdown of your prison income is displayed:
Income from Factories: Funds raised from the sale of goods manufactured in your factories by your inmates. The happier your inmates the harder they will be willing to work.
Income from Off-site Work: Funds raised from the hiring out of inmates to work on farms and chain gangs.
Government Funding: Cash received from the state for the upkeep of your prison population and the expansion of your facilities. Usually, this will increase as your ability to deal with higher security inmates grows.
Charity: Cash from benevolent societies concerned with prisoner welfare. The more prisoners you successfully "reform" the higher this amount will be.
On the right hand side of the panel are your expenses. These are as follows:
Prisoner Upkeep: Your inmates are entitled to food, clothing, shelter and medical care. All other things are privileges. The basics cost money none the less and each new mouth to feed is a drain on your financial resources.
Maintenance Costs: The efficient operation of any prison is only as good as the facilities in it and as they begin to break down so does the status-quo. When the lights fail, or the cells are cold, or the springs on the bunks are broken, or the TV is not showing the big game, you are going to have an angry and increasingly ungovernable prison population. This is a record of how much you are spending to keep things running.
Staff Salaries: The amount of money paid to your employees. The more staff and the higher their security level the more they cost to employ.
Construction Costs: This is the material and labor costs incurred in the construction of the prison buildings and their facilities.
Compensation Pay outs: Sometimes an inmate will have a grievance with you or your staff over a matter of rough treatment. In extreme cases, inmates may die while in your custody and you may be sued by his surviving family. Here is a record of your settlement costs in such matters.
Land Rent: The amount you are paying for the land that you are building on. This may be to a local authority or a private land owner. The amount is fixed by area and increases as your prison expands and outgrows its original site. The inclusion of Clerical Offices on your premises will help to offset these costs. The staff there will negotiate with the land owners on your behalf and lower your Land Rent payments.

| Guards Panel The Guards Panel allows you to keep an eye on the current state of your security arrangements within your facility. Specifically, it focuses on data regarding your Prison Guards. Your Guards maintain law and order within the prison. They are your eyes, ears and when necessary, your iron fist. A new guard is added to your staff whenever you build a new security room or watch tower. In the case of watchtowers an extra guard is also created who remains assigned to keeping watch in that particular tower. The data displayed on the panel is as follows:

Guard Numbers : From left to right along the top of the panel, guard numbers are shown as an overall total followed by a breakdown by security rating from Low to Maximum.
Dynamic Data: To the right and beneath the guard number tallies, are a number of fields containing data on the following: Number of guard dogs, number of towers, number of attempted escapees apprehended, number of injured guards, number of prisoners "subdued" and prisoner fatalities incurred in the use of force.
Guard Morale: A colored bar directly beneath the guard number tallies. This indicates the level of confidence and dedication your prison guards have in your governorship and with each other. A low morale may indicate that they are expected to do too much and could use some support or encouragement in the form of additional colleagues or higher salaries. When guard morale is high they do their job better, are more vigilant, and more effective at maintaining order.
Guard Salaries: At the bottom of the panel the amount of cash that you are spending on your prison guards is displayed. Alongside the running total of your current monthly salary expenditure are 4 sets of toggles, one for each security grade. Use these to set how much each grade earns each month.

| This button opens a drop-down roster displaying a list of all your prison guards, and an assortment of useful info and stats about them. Clicking on any individual in this roster will focus in on them.

Guard Pop-up Panel
When you right click on one of your prison guards, a pop up panel appears with information about him:

Vital Statistics: On the right of the panel, beside the snapshot the individual's statistics (see above) are displayed. Monitor these carefully to ensure that they are in a fit state to function properly. If this is not the case, ask yourself, what can be done better to improve matters?
Data: The top right of the panel is concerned with personal matters regarding this individual, including age, star sign, when they joined your prison and how long they have served here. Also, the number of prisoners this guard has been forced to subdue, how many he has killed, and the number of escapees apprehended. Under the snapshot near the bottom of the panel are their security level (a measure of their competence and ability to handle dangerous inmates), their Alert State (be it, Normal, Patrolling or Riot) and their current monthly salary.

| Patrol: If you want an individual guard to patrol a particular area, clicking this button will allow you to set a series of "way points". The guard will use them as the path he will take on his rounds. A useful means of increasing security in trouble "hot spots".
| Subdue a Prisoner: If an inmate is attacking another, or a member of staff, or you simply don't like the look of him, you can have a guard subdue that prisoner. In simple terms, he will get all the fight knocked out of him. A subdued prisoner won't give you any trouble for a while, although he will probably need to visit the one of the prison's medical facilities.
| Riot Mode: The guard will head immediately to the armoury to suit up with body armour and arm himself for a lethal force situation. Only to be used if prisoners are getting out of hand as collateral damage could be high.

Moving Guards: If you want to manually relocate guards to a place where their presence is required, left click on them and they will become attached to the end of your cursor. Left clicking in a new location will re-locate them. If you want to locate them to somewhere within a building, simply click on the building and you will have access to all its floors in the normal way. Conversely, to move someone out of a building simply pick them up and click on the exit building icon.

| Prisoner Panel

The Prisoner Panel displays information on your overall prison inmate demographic:

Population: How many prisoners you are housing and how many there are within each security band (Low, Medium, High and Maximum).
Data: The rest of the panel shows the following, starting next to the population count by security level, they are: inmates released; inmates escaped; inmates rehabilitated; and re-offenders.
In a row along the bottom are the following: number of fights; number of riots; total deaths; deaths due to illness; deaths due to inmate violence; deaths due to guard action; and executions.
Contraband: In the bottom right of the panel is an indicator showing the current level of contraband circulating amongst the inmate population.

| This button opens a drop-down roster displaying a list of all your prisoners, and an assortment of useful info and stats about them. Clicking on any individual in this roster will focus in on them.

It is wise to keep a careful eye on the prisoner panel. If violence is on the increase, for example, then you are probably doing something wrong; either your security is insufficient or lax, or your inmates' living conditions are not good enough.

Prisoner Pop-up Panel
As with your guards, when you right click on one of your prisoners, a pop up panel appears:

Vital Statistics: On the right of the panel, beside the snapshot the individual's statistics (see above) are displayed. Monitor these carefully ant try to spot any telltale signs of boredom, aggression or ill health. If negative traits are dominant then it's possible you are not spending enough on inmate facilities and welfare. If, on the other hand, your prisoner is calm, healthy and well on his way to being fully rehabilitated, then you are clearly doing something right.
Data: The top right of the panel shows personal matters regarding this individual, such as age, star sign, when they were incarcerated in your prison and the length of their sentence. Followed by: fights, kills, guard assaults, escape attempts, date of next parole hearing, tasks completed and cash saved from their prison wages. Next to their snapshot is their security level (a measure of their overall risk), and their gang affiliations (this is worth keeping track of as opposing gangs fight each other given the chance).
Mood State: Under the prisoner's portrait is his mood state. This is a useful indicator as to whether or not your prison facilities are up to scratch and what areas may need attention in order to maintain harmony.

Prisoner Death: When a prisoner is injured there is every chance that he will be able to heal naturally or else find assistance from your medical staff. However, sometimes a prisoner is so severely injured that he will die that very day unless he finds, or is given, medical attention. In this instance another icon is shown on the prisoner pop-up panel.

Celebrity Prisoner: If this icon appears on the pop-up panel then you have a noteworthy "celebrity" felon on your hands. This is likely to attract attention to your prison from fans and media types. If this individual tells everyone he was well treated it will do wonders for your reputation. However, bear in mind, on the inside as on the outside, celebrities can be a handful. Whatever happens, his presence is sure to draw attention, welcome or otherwise, to your facility and how you run it.

Cell Allocation / Reallocation: Prisoners will normally be allocated to cells automatically, but this is an entirely arbitrary process and prisoners with opposing gang affiliations can end up bunking together. You may wish to separate them for their own safety and the overall benefit of your prison. As described above, you can pick up and move prisoners to new locations and also place them in a new cell. If there is available space in the cell (and by "cell" we also include any placed arrangement of beds and bunks in dorms) and the prisoner and cell security ratings are compatible then the cursor will move into the cell area and you will be able to place the inmate. If the security ratings are incompatible and/or there is not an available bunk in that unit, then the cursor will not allow placement of the inmate. Remember that just because there appears to be a free bunk, it is possible that it is already allocated to another inmate who happens to be elsewhere at the time. In this case you will have to pick another cell or bunk for him. The "cell" icon beside his Mood State indicates whether or not he has been assigned a cell. If the icon has a RED "X" through it, that warns you that this inmate has no accommodation. If this is the case then you need to do something about it or he will escape!
Moving Prisoners: When you left click on a prisoner, as with a member of staff, you have the option to move them to another part of the prison. This is significant if you find that rival gangs are mixing and fighting too frequently. Remember that inmate conflict is extremely BAD for your Prison Rating and its overall development. When relocating a prisoner, the process is exactly the same as moving a member of staff. Left click on them and they will become attached to the end of your cursor. Left clicking in a new location will re-locate them. If you want to relocate an inmate to somewhere within a building, simply click on the building and you will have access to all its floors in the normal way. Conversely, to move someone out of a building simply pick them up and click on the exit building icon.

| General Staff Panel In Prison Tycoon there is deliberately not a complex hire and fire procedure. Staff positions are created and filled when certain rooms are placed within buildings, and lost when the facility is removed; For example Guard Rooms and Towers create Guards, a Maintenance Room creates a Maintenance Worker, Hospitals create Medical Personnel, etc. The Staff Panel displays a table of information relating to each of the four staff categories:

Medical: Each medical facility you install comes with its complement of staff. Your doctors are always o hand to attend to the medical needs of your inmates.
Welfare: Therapists and Chaplains ensure the inmates', emotional and spiritual well being.
Maintenance: Without Maintenance workers your facilities eventually grind to a halt with use. Dispatch your handyman to fix them and keep the prison population happy. Cleaners tidy up the mess that constantly occurs in a prison, without them overall prison standards and morale decline, everyone gets upset and hygiene suffers, bringing with it the threat of disease.
Data: For each of the 3 staff categories, running totals of staff numbers, salaries (these are fixed values over which you have no control), successfully completed tasks, and staff morale.

| This button opens a drop-down roster displaying a list of all your general staff, and an assortment of useful info and stats about them. Clicking on any individual in this roster will focus in on them.

For each of these staff categories there are three factors for you to monitor in the interests of balance and efficiency: Number of staff in each category; Total expenditure on salaries for that category; Tasks completed by staff category.

| General Staff Pop-up Panel

When you right click on one of your prison staff, a pop up panel appears with information about him or her:

Vital Statistics: On the right of the panel, beside the snapshot the individual's statistics (see above) are displayed. Monitor these carefully to ensure that they are in a fit state to function properly. If this is not the case, ask yourself, what can be done better to improve matters?
Data: The top right of the panel is concerned with personal matters regarding this individual, including age, star sign, when they joined your prison and how long their contract is for, number of tasks completed, and their salary. Staff Morale is affected by their working environment. If it is low, then you need to change a few things to their betterment or maybe give them a pay rise to motivate them, perhaps they are expected to do too much and would do better if more staff were working with them.
Duty Button: If you feel that your employee is just standing around doing nothing or wandering aimlessly, then click here. This will immediately send them off to find a task to do.
Moving Staff: If you want to manually relocate a member of staff to a place where their presence is required (especially useful in the case of Cleaners and Maintenance Workers), left click on them and they will become attached to the end of your cursor. Left clicking in a new location will re-locate them. If you want to locate a member of staff to somewhere within a building, simply click on the building and you will have access to all its floors in the normal way. Conversely, to move someone out of a building simply pick them up and click on the exit building icon.

Challenge Panel
The "documents" button opens a straight-forward panel that serves as a reminder of the current challenge you are facing. As this only applies when you are playing in Challenge Mode, it will be inaccessible at all other times...

Parole Review
From time to time inmates are reviewed to assess their eligibility for parole. At the end of any given day it is possible that the Parole Review Screen will be presented for your attention.
Prisoner Report Cards: On the left hand side of your desk is a stack of Prisoner Report Cards. These inmates are currently up for review. It is entirely at your discretion whether or not you decide that they deserve to be paroled. At the bottom of each card are two rectangular boxes. Here you make your mark to Affirm or Decline Parole to that prisoner.
Prison Statistical Review: On the right hand side is a different report sheet. This one contains a review of your prisons vital statistics collated here and provided as a means to aid the decision making process while assessing prisoners for parole.
Once you have finished the review click the Continue button located centrally at the bottom of the screen. You may click this at any time but by doing so you automatically deny parole to any un-reviewed inmates.

| Options

Options Panel
This allows you a measure of control over the game environment as well as enabling you to load and save your prisons.
From left to right the icons on the options panel are as follows: Load a saved game; Save a current game; Toggle Level of Detail in the landscape, can be set to high (default) or low (useful if you are experiencing performance issues on an older PC); Toggle Sound Effects, on/off; Toggle Music on/off; and Quit Game (this returns you to the Main Menu).

| Getting Started

How To Begin Building
First and foremost in your mind should be accommodation and security. The local authorities will not send you inmates until you have somewhere to house them. Begin by placing a basic Dormitory Building.
Open the Build Panel by clicking on the Build Icon. The first thing you see will be a preview thumbnail of the lowest level dormitory. Place it somewhere near to the entrance of your prison. Click on the building to access its interior. Click the Build Icon again and add as many bunks and beds as you desire or can afford. There, that's your first Inmate Dorm ready, but you need more than that.
Next, Security. Open the Build Panel again and click on the Security Icon (the keys). Select and place a Security Building, access its interior in the same way as the Dormitory and place, at the least, a Guard Room (Prison Guards will not arrive until they can be stationed somewhere). Any other room types are also welcome as they will each provide/enhance your prison facilities. Also note that placing a Guard Tower will bring with it an additional Prison Guard.
Your Inmates will arrive soon and they are going to need places to eat, exercise, access to medical facilities, ways to better themselves and to use their time inside constructively. A basic Mess hall can be found in the Services section of the Build Panel, as can a Services Building. These will require the addition of essential interior furnishings, fitments and rooms.
Running A Successful Prison
New buildings and rooms become available to you as your Security Level increases. This is a measure of your Prison's success. As your Governorship is judged to be reliable, more dangerous inmates will be dispatched to you and higher level facilities will become available.
To increase your Security Level, you need to maintain a vigilant guard presence, build Guard Towers, Guard Rooms, Surveillance Rooms and Armories. Prevent inmates from escaping (by always having accommodation available for them when they arrive), maintain a suitable level of contentment among your prison population by the provision of decent services and maintaining those standards consistently. If you do this your Prison will develop and grow. If you don't, then your prisoners' discontentment will turn to anger, they will refuse to work, become violent, rival gangs will fight among themselves and you may well find yourself losing control of the situation.
If fighting does break out, you can intervene by grabbing and relocating prisoners, or placing staff at the scene of potential trouble to subdue violent inmates or tend to the wounded. Prisoners and staff are moved by left clicking on them with the mouse. This will attach them to your cursor. By clicking on another area of your prison you will relocate them. This is a useful way of ensuring that inmates from opposing gangs don't get a chance to become violent and fight each other. It is also possible to move them into and out of buildings while they are attached to your cursor. This is done by clicking on the building and dropping them in, or clicking on the exit building icon and putting them outside.