Prison Architect Alpha 31 – Executions!

Finally! You can fry prisoners. With the release of Alpha 31, Prison Architect now allows you to kill those prisoners that have been sentenced to death in the electric chair.

Sure there are lots of loopholes to leap through – aren’t there always when taking a human life – you’ll need to hire a lawyer and hold lots of appeals for the prisoner in question if you want to ensure that they are actually guilty (there are heavy penalties if it later turns out they aren’t guilty – fortunately that’s not the case in real life).

You’ll also need to build a dedicated death row with cells and, of course, an electric chair – but it’ll be worth the initial outlay when you get the hefty bonuses for executing those pesky criminals.

The addition of executions really ramps up the moral ambiguity that we’ve come to love in Prison Architect – and makes it an even better satire of penal systems around the world (particularly the 36 countries that still actively execute criminals).

The lawyer also allows you to flout certain human rights considerations, such as the minimum size of cells and the period of time that you can keep a prisoner in solitary – if they’re a nuisance you can keep them detained indefinitely.

The final addition in Alpha 31 is the reception, which – when built – is where new prisoners arrive. It’s much more secure than having them dropped of in the deliveries section but requires extra guard manpower to strip search and process them.

Here’s producer Mark Morris and designer Chris Delay discussing the latest release:

You can read the full update notes on the Introversion website here.