Keep them in. Keep them safe. Keep your job.

Prison Manager puts YOU in charge of a prison. Build it on a living map, then run it like the governor (or warden) does: every prisoner and every member of staff has a file, every day brings new decisions, and every year the boss decides whether you're promoted, kept on, or shown the door.

A living prison

• Build wings, cells over several floors, kitchens, workshops, classrooms, healthcare, visits halls, yards, chapels and more from ready-made buildings, or take over a working prison.
  
• Watch the day play out: unlock, breakfast, work and education, exercise, visits, association and lock-up. Weather, seasons, day and night, and traffic coming and going.
  
• Walls, fences, gates, cameras, body scanners and drone detection all change what gets in and who gets out.

Every person has a file

• Each prisoner has a face, a background, a sentence, a cell, friends, rivals and debts, and a custody log of everything that happens to them.
  
• Hire officers, nurses, teachers, chefs and more. Plan the weekly rota, and deal with sickness, stress, pay rises and misconduct.
  
• Follow people after release: housing, work, probation, and whether they come back.

Decisions on your desk

• An inbox of real-world calls: parole recommendations, early release on a tag, hospital referrals for the mentally ill, requests for protection, funerals, weddings, journalists and MPs.
  
• Adjudications, use of force, complaints and the prisons ombudsman. Drugs, debt, violence and self-harm, with ACCT plans and constant watches.
  
• Big events: disorder, escapes, deaths in custody, heatwaves, drone surges and staff walkouts. Unannounced inspections grade you on safety, respect, purposeful activity and preparation for release.

Built on real figures

• Violence, self-harm, drug use, staffing, adjudications and reoffending are tuned to published government figures for England and Wales and the United States.
  
• A local newspaper reports on you every Monday, and public opinion follows.

A career

• Start with a ready-made prison or an empty plot, or take on a scenario: turn round a failing jail, survive the 2024 overcrowding crisis, rebuild after a riot, or open a new prison.
  
• Climb from open prisons to high security, move between prisons and countries, and try to reach the top of the service.

Prison Manager deals with serious subjects (violence, drugs, self-harm, deaths in custody and, in some US states, the death penalty). They are handled soberly and never shown graphically.