Discipline & Reform
Punishment as an action, with a self-complete payoff — and the seat of institutionalization.
This page is the numbers — what a disciplinary act does to reform and order. What drives it in play (a warden's rehabilitation sessions, and neglect that hardens) is Rehabilitation.
Punishment does two things at once, on two different axes:
- It deters the colony. Order seen to be done raises the climate of order for everyone: any act of discipline adds +0.12 to the colony's order. See Deterrence.
- It reshapes the punished. A harsh hand prisonizes — the pawn hardens, reform falls, their disposition climbs for good. A corrective hand rehabilitates — reform rises, their disposition cools for good.
Both effects belong to Corrections, so discipline is never inert. Prisoner Realism owns the passive toll of isolation (a good sim of how solitary feels); Corrections owns the order it produces and the persistent shift it leaves on the pawn. When both mods are present, PR's solitary deterioration deepens the felt experience on top — it does not replace this.
The two hands
Every disciplinary act moves the prisoner's reform score, in one of two directions:
| The hand | Reform change | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Harsh | −0.15 | Beatings, deprivation, the hard hand. Hardens — "prisonization." |
| Corrective | +0.10 | Correction, structure, rewarded good conduct. Rehabilitates. |
Either way, the act also adds +0.12 to the colony's order — the colony sees order done, whoever it was done to.
Reform lives on the shared record, clamped between −1 and +1:
| Reform | Reading |
|---|---|
| +1.0 | Fully rehabilitated |
| 0.0 | Untouched — as they came in |
| −1.0 | Fully hardened, institutionalized |
Note the asymmetry: harsh (−0.15) moves faster than gentle (+0.10). It takes three corrective acts to build +0.30 of reform; two harsh acts to tear down −0.30. Damage is quicker than repair — as it should be.
How reform becomes disposition
Reform is not a status effect or a mood buff. It feeds straight back into a pawn's disposition — Core's underlying "would they act out?" multiplier — scaling their whole disposition up or down and keeping it there. The size of that scaling is set entirely by reform:
| Reform | Disposition factor | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| −1.00 (hardened) | 1.500 | +50% more disposed — permanently |
| −0.30 | 1.150 | +15% |
| −0.15 (one harsh act) | 1.075 | +7.5% |
| 0.00 | 1.000 | untouched |
| +0.10 (one gentle act) | 0.950 | −5% |
| +0.30 (parole threshold) | 0.850 | −15% |
| +1.00 (rehabilitated) | 0.500 | −50% less disposed — permanently |
Because reform is clamped between −1 and +1, the factor spans 0.5× to 1.5×. This is the whole trick. Institutionalization and recidivism are not a parallel mechanic bolted on the side — they are one number the disposition already reads. A hardened pawn is not flagged "recidivist"; they simply carry a negative reform that makes every "would they?" roll for the rest of their life come up hot. Discipline and Parole are what move reform; disposition only reads it — which is how institutionalization emerges without a second system.
Worked example — two sentences
Take a fresh prisoner with reform 0, badly kept: mood 0.30, held. Before any reform, their disposition is already running hot — a bad mood (×1.6) and a held-and-unhappy cell (×1.4) combine, and with the colony at baseline the pawn sits around 2.35× disposition.
The hard hand. You beat them into line — three harsh punishments take reform to −0.45. At that reform the disposition factor is 1.225, so their disposition is now 2.35 × 1.225 ≈ 2.88 — +22% hotter than when they arrived, forever, independent of mood. You have made them more criminal, not less. This is prisonization: the sentence itself became the cause. (You did buy +0.36 of colony order along the way — order today, at the cost of the pawn's tomorrow.)
The corrective hand. Instead you structure and reward — three gentle punishments and you fix their conditions (recreation, decent cell) so mood recovers to 0.55. Reform rises to +0.30, and the recovered mood drops the "badly kept" and "held-and-unhappy" penalties entirely. The disposition factor at +0.30 reform is 0.85, so their disposition is now roughly 0.89 — below neutral. The same pawn who would have been 2.88 disposed is now 0.89. And at reform 0.30 with a low enough grade they have crossed the Parole threshold. Same institution, opposite outcomes — decided by which hand you used.
How to play with discipline
- Harsh is a lever, not a punishment button. It buys colony order now (+0.12) at the price of the pawn's disposition forever (−0.15 reform → hotter disposition). Use it when you need the deterrence and never intend to release the pawn — a Supermax lifer you are only ever going to hold.
- Gentle is how anyone gets out. Parole needs reform 0.30 or higher; only the corrective hand builds it. Three gentle acts is the floor.
- Damage compounds; repair is slow. −0.15 vs +0.10 means a pawn you brutalize early is expensive to bring back — and a hardened pawn commits more crime, which sinks the climate, which makes everyone worse. Don't harden pawns you might want later.
- Conditions and discipline stack. Reform shifts disposition permanently; mood, neglect and deterrence shift it live (see Regime and Deterrence). A reformed pawn in a well-run wing is calm on two axes at once.
Part of the Institution suite for RimWorld 1.6: Core · Contraband · Policing · Corrections · Gangs · Ward.