MarkB
Legend
Their main security measure, aside from the electrified floor, is the physical separation between prisoners and guards, with the prisoners effectively self-policing. But that self-policing is based on the premise of using prisoners near the end of their sentences, on the assumption that they'll be reluctant to jeopardise their imminent freedom.Me too. But once you breach the other defenses, I feel the whole thing tumbles quickly. The guards aren't well armed, and the means of evading most of the defenses is just good electrical insulation. The guards are also shown to be short staffed.
The prisoners are actually well armed. They have the tensioners which would make brutal clubs that would basically match guard shock sticks, and they have laser or fusion cutters that in confined quarters would be almost as good as blasters. And they are all fit from hours of hard manual labor.
I think that one obvious problem with the prison as constructed is that it has very little down time for maintenance. The guards feel rushed. During the shift changes they have to get the cells cleaned, provide the clean uniforms, and fix all the stuff that is going to break from routine use. If you build a prison like this there are some really strong features, but at some level it's got the very same problems that the horribly designed zoos in Jurassic Park have - the system is so complicated that once one part of it breaks the whole thing breaks.
Think of all the things that have to happen that we haven't seen. They need some way to punish the room and floor supervisors. They need to move the production from one shift out of the room into a verification area to check the work, and someone has to check that work. There are portions of the factory that would have to have more freedom of movement between areas than the poor grunts on the factory floor. And there is clear evidence that the workers are being able to subvert their controls as they move. Shifts are talking to each other during the shift exchange using sign language. It really just takes one well-placed guy getting a hold of boots and the guards have a potentially cascading problem.
But the Public Order bill undermines that, by extending the sentences of all prisoners, which removes the incentive for good behaviour.
And there's one time when guards do enter the prisoners' area - when adding or removing prisoners. That seems like the point of vulnerability.