So, I’ve noticed, when you are searching a cell, and you “leave” a contraband item, it gains 62 respect with that prisoner. When you “take” something, you only lose 25 respect. I call this the leave/take method that you will see referred to below. Basically it’s this:

Searching a cell and find illegal contraband:
“Leave item” = +62 respect (with that individual prisoner)
Look at same item
“Take item” = -25 respect (with that individual prisoner)
----------------------------
Overall = +37 respect AND you get to keep the item.

With this in mind, I have formulated a great way to basically always be gaining respect. I have successfully maintained 100% prisoner and guard respect very easily so I’m going to try and group this as best as possible.

The way respect works is individually from each prisoner, and their percentage respect for you makes up a total average percent that you see at the bottom. Only certain things affect the prisoners respect for you as a whole (like punishing someone, letting them stay later in the prison yard, etc.). So when you search cells, that prisoners respect for you is what is affected, and no they do not need to actually “see” you take/leave/secure anything. It just counts. Prisoners going through intake are also not effected nor in other cell blocks because they do not have a respect bar.

Search every cell daily, including death row when it becomes available, until you get 100% then it’s just maintaining and you don’t really need to do a lot. The methods I use below keep both guard and prisoner respect at 100, and I have at least 30-40 of each illegal contraband item so that I make my daily rounds of selling items back to prisoners for money. Make it a habit to search the cells and do the individual people’s quests first. Time is literally infinite in the game.

• When searching a cell, “leave” everything first, then look at it again and “take” (or “secure” if you need the guard respect). This means that no matter what, you are always gaining respect because you gain 62 respect then only lose 25 respect right after, AND you get the item to keep in your inventory to sell back later or give away to earn more respect. Early in the game, you want to use this method. Search, leave legal contraband (because you don’t gain respect for leaving it), and then use the “leave” then ”take” hack back to back method for all illegal contraband.

• ALWAYS let time run completely to the max for prison yard time. This will gain an overall boost in respect for all prisoners by about 2%

• Use checking the pillow as like a marker for cells you’ve already searched. If the pillow is orange (until you level up that skill point) you know you haven’t looked in that cell yet.

• Leveling up strength and defense (going to the person at the basketball court with the arm icon) earns respect with prisoners.

• Basketball and weight bench raise prisoner respect.

• NEVER take their legal contraband in their cell, only in death row or cells with missing prisoners. You don’t gain respect for “leaving” it, so the “leave” & “take” hack does not work.

• When you go to “take” an item, and a prisoner begs you to leave it, always accept a bribe, this still gives you the same amount of respect as if you had told them you’ll turn a blind eye (the +respect option). So you might as well get both money and respect.

• You don’t need prisoners to see you “leave” an item. It just automatically counts towards that prisoner by being in their cell.

• After intake, sometimes respect will go down. That means they’re in your B-block cell and new inmates start at the 50% threshold. Go to those people when they have a money sign over their head and “give” them 2 items (legal contraband only since it’s cheap but all has a 10% respect gain) to quickly boost them up. You can only give 2 items a day so rinse/repeat.

• Once you reach 100% with a prisoner, it’s really just maintenance, if a cell is all green, but the pillow isn’t for example, just leave that item. Because all you will only lose respect (you can’t go over 100% with the leave then take method). If there’s other areas that’s red though, I can leave/take everything, then the very last item I will leave without taking to keep the boost at 100%. For this reason, I check chairs/pillows first, but ONLY if there is other red spots in the cell. That way I KNOW there’s always another item to leave last to keep the boost for the respect to stay at 100.

• Also if you pick up a chair/pillow and see contraband, if you DON’T CLICK IT, you can set it back down, search the rest of the cell first, then come back to it to do the leave then take method. That way you can always guarantee if there’s something under there, you can leave/take everything else in the cell then come back and just “leave” that item so that it’ll keep you at 100%

• For faster cabinet searching (before you level up that skill point that shows you package items), just pick up and set down everything immediately. Items that are red will have contraband and you actually pick up and look at. It won’t count towards respect until you actually click the contraband item.

• For the visiting room, ALWAYS choose the +respect option. And for anything else, always choose the +respect answer.

• ALWAYS let time run completely to the max for workshop time. This will gain more money for the prison.

• Darts/cleaning routine earns respect for guards.

• If you ever have less than 100%, “leave” then “secure” a contraband item until it’s back up to 100. This will ensure you’re still gaining prisoner respect but the item will go towards guard respect instead of taking it. Once guard respect is at 100%, go back to “leave” then “take” item. It won’t affect guard respect to not secure it unless they see you.

• On that note, if there is no blue eye icon, you’re good to take something. If you do see it, just stand there (with the contraband item pulled up to “leave”, “take”, “secure”) for a couple seconds and the guard will walk away then you can take the item.

• Securing items is ONLY for respect, not money for the prison, so once your guard respect is at 100%, stop securing items. Only leave, then take.

• When you can finally access death row, make it a point to go there daily and search there. Search everything because that’s a great way to stock up on legal contraband and illegal contraband. You receive no penalty in respect from guards/prisoners for keeping EVERYTHING you find. You don’t need to “leave” then “take” … only “take.”

• On that note as well, all EMPTY cells in Block B (like when a prisoner dies or is gone to the infirmary) counts like death row. They are not there to witness you searching their cell so just “take” everything. You will not receive a negative penalty in respect. It will not affect other prisoners in other cells.

• Green spots (once you get the skill point to show where contraband is) still can contain legal contraband.

• Never attack anyone. If a guard or prisoner has a side-quest wanting you to beat someone up, just answer “I’m not interested.” Turning down the side-quest will not affect respect levels but beating someone up will.

• Always use free time to level up speed/strength/defense. Strength and defense trade off and are only available during certain free times, but all are available to level up at least once each day. Speed is available every free time, so I’d worry about that last. To check what skill points you need, just run over to the work out area in the prison yard and it’ll show your stats. Don’t worry about dart games, basketball or working out stamina (workbench) during free time, those are literally always available without passing time. So, I’d do strength or defense during free time (whichever depending on what part of the day that free time is) and then after go over to the workout bench and do the stamina contest thing, and it wouldn’t fast forward time. So it’s like doing 2 points per free time. Once strength and defense were maxed, I did the speed challenge (package icon) and then stamina.

• You literally don’t need the passive skill points, especially if you’re leveling up your actual stats. I have all my active skill points maxed out and now I’m finally starting to put points into the passive ones.

• For shower time, use the nightstick to bang on the shower doors to knock off like 5-10 seconds of time until it’s to zero. I just do them all in a row, then run back to the first one and take all their towels in a row, then run to the front and deal out the new towels.

• To find the nightstick or book for the guard quest, the 2 spawning locations are under the weight bench in the prison yard, or on the table in the guard office of Cell Block B (where the lever is to open/close cells)

• ALWAYS take or buy cookies if you see them in a prisoners inventory. You need to stock these up for the cookie quest that pops up every now and then since you will always need 10. Also, once this quest is active, you won’t find cookies from searching cells until the NEXT DAYS SHIFT. Because all of the items have spawned for that day in cells when you accept the quest, you will need to have it reload new items the next day with the quest active for it to actually put cookies in cells. (Which will always be found in spots marked green since it’s legal contraband).

• To delegate tasks to other officers once you have that skill point, pull out your walkie talkie and RIGHT CLICK on any officer to pass off your daily duty.