Contraband Prison Architect Guide

Last update: 25 May 2016

Contraband is all items smuggled or stolen by prisoners. They have a tendence to take items from particular places and use them for their own goals. But, luckily, you can search every bandit and reveal his contraband. To do so, click on the prisoner and choose Search Prisoner (optnio no. 1 on the screen above). The closest guard will approach and search him.

But villains aren't stupid: they are aware that if you reveal theft, they go to the solitary cell. That's why they hide items in their cells, what decreases the risk of being detected. You can search cells also: choose the prisoner and click Search Cell (option no. 2 on the screen above). You can also check every single item by clicking it and choosing search.

If your guard chef discovered contraband in bureaucracy panel, you get an access to new bookmark in report windown (screen above). It shows desires of prisoners for particular goods and its amount in the prison. You should treat those information with some reserve, because they are not always exact. But you can read that contraband has four categories:

• Weapons - dangerous items used in fights. This can be knife, poison, firearm etc. You should intercept those ones in particular - you don't want prisoners to kill themselves.
• Tools - items which can be used in fights, but are less dangerous than normal weapon. In the following versions of the game, tools will help prisoners run away.
• Narcotics - drugs which stun prisoners and make them act in the unpredictable way. They are not that dangerous (from your point of view).
• Luxuries - like cell phones or cigarettes. They are not dangerous and you shouldn't bother with them.

When the contraband is discovered by the guard chef, you obtain also an access to a new bookmark in the bottom part of interface (screen above). Click on it to get to know from where prisoners are taking illegal things. The natural thing seems to put in those rooms guards, but, unfortunately, it doesn't work as the contraband just appears miraculously and you just can't notice that. Guard placed in visiting room won't be bothered by the fact that the prisoner's family give him narcotics (!). But there is one solution: Metal Detector.

As you can see on the screen above, well placed metal detector let you detect contraband, when it's carried by prisoners. Guards automatically approach the thief and search him. If he didn't hide items anywhere, he goes to solitary cell and the contraband is destroyed.

Unfortunately, you can't rely on this merthod in 100%, because not all of items are made of metal - poison, for example, won't be detected.

The ultimate method for fighting the contraband is Shakedown. Press the button in right bottom corner to order all of free guards carefully searching of the whole prison, with all prisoners. This helps you find most of illegal things, but also annoys prisoners for several hours.

You should use Shakedown before hour of sleep set up in regime - thanks to that, all bandits will be easy to find and search (guards will look at them in cells). In this way, you can limit an amount of weapons and dangerous tools at the beginning of the next day, which is the most conflict part of the day.