Parole
Release, driven by what the pawn has become.
This page is the release decision. The warden work that acts on it — the "Ready for parole" alert and the release that frees a parolee back into the colony — is Rehabilitation.
Parole is the end of the arc, and it is deliberately a decision, not a mechanic that rebuilds the game's release flow. It asks one question — is this pawn ready? — and answers it from two things already on the record: the reform the sentence earned (or failed to earn), and the grade the record warrants.
The return outcome — a grateful ally, a vengeful raider — is Prisoner Realism's Recidivism, a good sim Corrections does not rebuild. Corrections' mirror is the parolee who stays and may reoffend, carrying their record into the colony.
The gate
A prisoner can be paroled only when all three of these hold:
| Condition | Threshold | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Not already pardoned | never released before | Release is one-way; you can't re-parole. |
| Genuinely reformed | reform 0.30 or higher | Proof the sentence healed rather than hardened. Three corrective acts minimum. |
| Low enough grade | grade Medium or below (risk under 0.8) | Reform of attitude is not enough — the record must have cooled to something you'd let out. |
A pawn with no record at all is releasable trivially (there is nothing to hold them). Everyone else has to earn all three.
The grade gate and the reform gate interact in a way worth internalizing. Because reform subtracts at most 0.4 from risk (Classification), a pawn whose reform-less risk is 1.2 or more can never reach Medium — so no amount of reform will ever parole a prolific offender. Parole is for pawns whose record stayed shallow enough that treatment can pull them back under the ceiling. Let a pawn rack up escapes and catches and you have quietly converted them into a lifer, whatever their attitude.
Release
Releasing a parolee marks a pardon on their record. Vanilla does the actual freeing; the pardon is Corrections' memory that this pawn was let out after genuine reform, so reintegration can grant a clean slate and the pawn won't be offered for parole twice. A modest faction-goodwill / relationship nudge for a well-handled release is the immediate payoff.
The whole arc
The pawn moves through every stage in turn, and each one writes the record the next one reads:
| Stage | Where it lives | What moves | What's recorded |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Crime | Deterrence | Climate −0.08; the colony runs hot | a crime, and when it happened |
| 2. Caught & held | Classification | A grade is assigned from the record | reads every counter |
| 3. Discipline | Discipline | Reform moves ±; climate +0.12 | reform |
| 4. Reform | Discipline → Core | Disposition cools as reform rises | reform (read by disposition) |
| 5. Regrade | Classification | Reform subtracts risk; grade falls | reads reform |
| 6. Parole | this page | Gate opens at reform 0.30 and grade Medium or below | reads reform and pardon; sets pardon |
It is a loop, not a line: the crime that opens stage 1 also cools the colony's climate, which the next pawn's disposition reads — so one pawn's whole sentence is faintly present in every other pawn's odds.
Worked example — a sentence that ends in release
Cass, a Kind pickpocket whose gentle nature floors her nature term at 0. She arrives with one crime, caught once, no escapes, no contraband, no reform yet. Her risk is (1 × 0.20) + (1 × 0.15) = 0.35 → Medium. She is already Medium-or-below, so the grade gate is met — but her reform is 0, so she is not yet releasable.
You give her the corrective hand three times (structure, rewarded conduct) and fix her cell so she isn't stewing. Reform rises to 0.30, which subtracts 0.30 × 0.4 = 0.12 from her risk, dropping her to 0.23 → Minimum. Now all three gates are met — reform at least 0.30, Minimum is below Medium, and she's never been pardoned — so Cass is paroleable. Pardon her and she walks.
Contrast Bram from the Classification page, whose reform-less risk of 1.55 keeps him at Maximum even at full reform — the grade gate never opens for him, so he can never be paroled. Two prisoners, the same treatment, and the record decides which one you can ever let go.
A note on record cleanup
A pawn with a completely empty record — no crimes, no escapes, no contraband, no catches, no reform, no pardon — is forgotten on save/load (Core prunes blank and dead-pawn records). A pardoned pawn is therefore not empty, and their record persists: the pardon is remembered. This is why a released parolee who stays and reoffends still carries their history — Corrections does not forget that they were once let out.
Ideology-flavoured thresholds
Precepts layer on top of this baseline, not under it: an execution-favouring ideoligion paroles rarely, a lenient one readily. The gate above is the baseline those precepts modulate — the floor beneath the flavour, so the decision is coherent whether or not Ideology is installed.
How to play with parole
- Parole is earned, not granted. You cannot release your way out of a deep record. Decide early whether a pawn is a keep-or-release case and treat (gently) the ones you mean to free.
- Reform 0.30 is three gentle acts, minimum. Nothing faster reaches it. Start early.
- Keep the record shallow if you want the option. Every escape (+0.35) and catch (+0.15) you let accumulate pushes a pawn toward the unparoleable side of the 1.2 line.
- A parolee who stays is a Corrections case, not a farewell. They carry their record; if conditions sour, their disposition (still reading their history) can put them back on it.
Part of the Institution suite for RimWorld 1.6: Core · Contraband · Policing · Corrections · Gangs · Ward.