Hello,
@Crazylawrence.
In regards to the prison server, it really depends on the server hardware, location, time, knowledge and money you have.
Cost & hardware
I have been staff on many servers professionally on multiple servers for the past 3 years, what I have noticed over the 3 years is the lack of funding.
Minecraft servers are extremely expensive as you have to pay monthly. Servers come as cheap as $5 usually, those servers would have 1gb of RAM 2x 2.4Ghz intel xeon and 10 gb SATA 10 SSD and no DDos protection. If you had to pay for a large server, it would easily break $50 a month.
I recommend buying a VPS, a virtual private server for all your needs. Good servers are around $20 a month. You may be asking what a vps is and why not just a normal minecraft server. A VPS can host almost anything, it's literally just another computer not in your house. Rather than just hosting a minecraft server, you can host a website, discord bots and even an owncloud to share files with other staff or friends. VPS' are a lot cheaper and just in general better.
If you also decide to host a server on a VPS you can choose the amount of RAM and system resources that goes into the server. You can also choose things like server capacity and backup intervals.
You should try to have enough money for at least 2 years of funding. Usually in the first year of a minecraft server you would not get a very large donation.
Location
Hosting a server in America either at New York or Chicago is your best bet when you are starting off. Once a funding is secured, expanding to europe then Australia or Singapore would be good. America has a larger amount of minecraft players compared to Australia or Britain. Lower ping for american players will really increase the server reputation.
Time & Effort
Like I have previously mentioned, I have been staff on various servers for 3 years already. Learning how to configure plugins, the basic commands and things like bungeecord, spigot, craftbukkit and FTP which I assume you would already have some knowledge on this will be very useful. Servers often get controlled by the head staff like Administrators or Co-Owners because the owner does not understand how plugins work.
Spending at least 2 hours communicating with staff, checking forums and managing the server should be a must. Not communicating with staff members will slow down the progression of the server. If you do not have enough time, I recommend delegating someone to do tasks for you but not all of them.
Staff
I've mentioned staff a lot in this post so I'll mention it more. You should keep a staff to player ratio of .25 moderators per 3 players. Make sure you talk regularly to all staff and make sure your staff members are spread around the country so there will be at least 1 staff member on 24/7.
Other
Domains: Getting custom domains makes the server look more professional, .tk domains are good to start off with as it is free, however over time you should secure a TLD, Top Level Domain for your website and server.
Network: Once enough funding is secured, you should consider starting a network of servers, offering more prison servers creating less lag or making other gamemodes all together.
Conclusion
I would definitely join a server if I see things I have listed on here. I hope this helps you decide whether or not if you want to create a minecraft server. This is most of my knowledge on starting and running successful servers, I'm not sure if you have no idea on what I have wrote or if you fully understand. This is just my opinion.
Best Regards, Aussie Chan.
