That was not his assignment,

@Tropical_Willie He could have armed the other prisoners with the guards blasters and made a stand. It seems that the princess forgot as well. I wonder how many of them were the captured guards who accompanied her to find general
Kenobi?

That still is not his mission ! !

@Tropical_Willie Ok Thanks GA!

The escaping prisoners would have made such a ruckus that all the Stormtroopers would have been alerted. That would have made Han and Leia’s escape much harder.

Hans Olo was a smuggler. A criminal. This was just another gig to him, so he did not care about the other prisoners.

@ragingloli Right. Correct. I thought that he could have caused a distraction with prisoners running amuck through the Death Star. The princess however should have known better than to leave her subordinates followers behind.

Are you referencing when Luke and Han and Chewie blast their way into Detention Block AA23 – why didn’t they start opening up every door in that giant hallway?

They were given orders and only those orders were what matters.
Also: It’s the brig on a military warship. Most prisoners are gonna be imperial military personnel who violated one or another rule. The odds they’d help you are way lower than the odds that they’d immediately turn on you.