Penal System question

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. wrote:Sorry, No canon was given. And given that the books have dropped off the map, you may end up having to come up with your own Ideas...

:roll:

As to the OP, I have a little bit about that in the First Responders books. It's not so fundamentally unchanged from today's system, but there is little to no capital punishment and courts are heavily influenced by the NAA, with special tri-national courts for criminals that act across national lines. A lot of focus is on rehabilitation, though the success of many programs is questionable. In many ways it mirrors the justice system of the EU.

It would be prohibitively expensive to ship prisoners off-planet. Remember that there is an international presence on the moon and Mars, plus space stations, but space travel is hardly commonplace.

The institutions, themselves, would be far more advanced, however. If you're looking at a Rifts game, prisons would be pretty high up there on the scale of buildings that survive the Dark Age. Also remember that it doesn't take long after the Coming of the Rifts for a thousand little fiefdoms and city-states to pop up, any number of which might utilize large superprisons, penal colonies, etc.
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Unread post by LostOne »

I'd say the prison system would be similar to how it is now. Large reinforced buildings, overcrowded.

As said above, space travel is insanely expensive, far too expensive to be maintaining regular trips to take new prisoners, trade out prison personnel for vacations, food supplies, etc.

Make some ocean prison facilities. There's plenty of real estate on the bottom of the ocean. Pressurized facilities, escape means drowning, or if they have sufficient lung capacity, death by decompression sickness. Only need to be a few hundred feet down to have decompression sickness be a lethal thing. In order to escape they'd have to have a submarine or many oxygen tanks and having scuba knowledge to know when to stop for decompression and how long....and it would be easy to recapture someone who is hovering in the water 100 feet down for 30 minutes before continuing...

If the prisoners riot and kill the handful of guards? Remotely blow the hatches on the facility, the ocean comes in. A few days later lock it up, repressurize, remove the bodies and bring in the next batch of inmates.
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Unread post by Library Ogre »

Here I figured they'd simply cryogenically freeze criminals, and rehabilitate them through subliminal messages while in cryostasis.
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Unread post by Tiree »

Mark Hall wrote:Here I figured they'd simply cryogenically freeze criminals, and rehabilitate them through subliminal messages while in cryostasis.


Don't tell me that they would be taught skills like Knitting and Crocheting
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Tiree wrote:
Mark Hall wrote:Here I figured they'd simply cryogenically freeze criminals, and rehabilitate them through subliminal messages while in cryostasis.


Don't tell me that they would be taught skills like Knitting and Crocheting

Naw, things like:

Urban Combatkill.
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Unread post by LostOne »

Taco Bell FTW

With Dennis Leary leading his intrepid band of fast food bandits.
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LostOne wrote:Make some ocean prison facilities. There's plenty of real estate on the bottom of the ocean. Pressurized facilities, escape means drowning, or if they have sufficient lung capacity, death by decompression sickness. Only need to be a few hundred feet down to have decompression sickness be a lethal thing. In order to escape they'd have to have a submarine or many oxygen tanks and having scuba knowledge to know when to stop for decompression and how long....and it would be easy to recapture someone who is hovering in the water 100 feet down for 30 minutes before continuing...

If the prisoners riot and kill the handful of guards? Remotely blow the hatches on the facility, the ocean comes in. A few days later lock it up, repressurize, remove the bodies and bring in the next batch of inmates.


underseas facilities would only be a few degree's less expensive to operate than space ones.

now, i can see the construction of a few artificial islands to house prison facilities, which would be cheaper to make and operate than the underseas facilities, and such islands would be just as secure.

the freezing idea might work, but prison is supposed to be a place where criminals are rehabilitated, not merely incarcerated. for best efectiveness, the prison itself needs to be a harsh life people would prefer to avoid, while at the same time a secure location where criminal activities can't occur. (part of the reason i like the prisons of Arizona, and the success they've had. simple housing, hard work, decent food. not comfortable, but not horrific.)
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Unread post by LostOne »

I really don't see why it would need to be expensive to house prisoners in 200-400 feet of water. Cheap modular MDC plastic construction, mass produced. Fresh Air is pumped in through a 3" hose that is attached to buoy's on the surface, it is pressurized and pumped into the module. Old air bleeds out into the ocean through a pressure nozzle (air pressure in the module exceeds Xpsi and it releases some air).

Tow the module behind a ship to where you want them, attach a few concrete anchors on chains and drop it. You could drop hundreds in an area and deliver food by remotely piloted electric sub (no hostage), the sub docks, prisoners open it and remove the food, attach a hose to empty their hazardous waste, unhook it, it goes off. Just make sure the prisoners know the sub is rigged to be remote detonated and has sensors to detect life signs inside it.

That could be done cheaply, have a minimum of personnel needed to keep the prisoners in line. The subs wouldn't need fuel, rechargable batteries. The Great Lakes could house a ton of prisoners. By 2098 the food could be delivered by drone subs, no remote pilot even needed. If there are lifesigns inside the sub when it leaves a module it will redock once. If there are still lifesigns when it undocks again, it will vent the air from the cargo area and surface quickly (drowning or decompression death).
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This is how I view the issue of submarine prisons in Chaos Earth: Imagine the outrage by human rights organizations, labor unions, and various interest groups at sinking criminals and their guards to the bottom of the sea, or even the bottom of a lake. Even today that idea would never make it to the voting block.

I'm not saying that it would be anything but extremely effective, but it would never survive the political process, in my opinion.
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Unread post by Tiree »

Cactuscat wrote:Hmm... Wasn't Ray Liotta in this movie? :D


No it was Christopher Lambert, he did the middle of the desert, and an Orbital Station. Ray Liotta was sent to an island, and well was voted off :lol:
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Unread post by LostOne »

Jason Richards wrote:This is how I view the issue of submarine prisons in Chaos Earth: Imagine the outrage by human rights organizations, labor unions, and various interest groups at sinking criminals and their guards to the bottom of the sea, or even the bottom of a lake. Even today that idea would never make it to the voting block.

I'm not saying that it would be anything but extremely effective, but it would never survive the political process, in my opinion.

You're probably right, unless there are a few incidents worse than 9/11 sometime between now and the coming of the Rifts.

Or when every location that has a supermax prison proposed keeps voting them down because of the "not in my neighborhood/town" mentality. People think prisons are great, but they don't want to see them when they look out the window, and they don't want them nearby in case a prisoner escapes. I live a mile from the state pen and we had an escape a year ago. I later found out after the fact that the guy was a few blocks from our apartment and trying to break into a car when he was caught. Imagine if that guy was a thoroughly psychotic enhanced human like might be seen between now and 2098.

Example: A juicer that can't be detoxed because it would kill him (past the safe point), and forcing him to detox and risk his life would be "inhumane" and tie it up in courts until he died of last call anyway. Who wants a prison housing guys like this within 50 miles? No one. So they might have to resort to something more drastic like the underwater prison idea.
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Unread post by glitterboy2098 »

except it would be cheaper, easier, and more human to dump some waste rock off the coast to make an island and put a normal prison on it. Alcatraz 2.0

undersea facilities you propose won't work too well. the airhose idea works ok for diving suits, but wouldn't be able to move enough air to fill a full complx, not without a sizable complex on the surface.
placing the facility in a hundred feet of water puts them close to shore, defeating the purpose.
having no guards means nobody to deal with leaks. and it means noone to keep the inmates from killing each other. plus it means no rehabilitation program.
automated subs are going to be expensive to operate, and expensive to build.
solutions ot these problems (AI, telepresence, ect) are going ot be more expensive than just building a normal prison and staffing it with guards.



now, regular prisons will have gotten much safer with the advent of MDC tech. walls and floors reinforced with MDC concrete mean no attempts to tunnel out. MDC body armor means guards are now safe from any homemade weapons made by the inmates.

things like cybernetics and bionics can be fitted with controllers to shut them down. juicers beyond the detox deadline can be kept in line by promises of continued chemical supplies. M.O.M users would generally be in max security asylums where they get treatment for the mental disorders and are kept safely away from the public.
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Unread post by Library Ogre »

Why not stick them on something like decomissioned supertankers or aircraft carriers? Clean them up, stick barracks in them, then stick them 50 or 100 miles off the coast? You can have plenty of guards, lots of space, and you're recycling.
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well, aside from the fact that ships aren't decommissioned until their becoming maintenece hogs and thus always falling apart, it seems to me to be impractical.

besides, what is to keep the prisoners from hijacking their own prison and sailing away?


plus, 50 to 100 miles is outside the national waters of many countries, i doubt other nations would like the idea of national prisons floating in internation waters.

(though the last bit wouldn't be an issue if my Deep Frontier article gets printed. i postulate the UN changing the wording of national waters to include anything a country can claim, releaving the UN of the burden of policing/protecting the undersea colonies, but at the same time sparking the global cold war...
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Unread post by LostOne »

glitterboy2098 wrote:well, aside from the fact that ships aren't decommissioned until their becoming maintenece hogs and thus always falling apart, it seems to me to be impractical.

Then use newly constructed barges. Token Coast Guard boats and helicopters or new group of Water Wardens in boats/helicopters with high caliber machine guns patrolling around there. Plus depth charges in case a prisoner tries to rig a scuba system to escape. Have the boats rigged with explosives on the outside of the hull underwater where it would be hard for someone without scuba gear to get to it, if a riot happens, scuttle the barge.

glitterboy2098 wrote:besides, what is to keep the prisoners from hijacking their own prison and sailing away?

Again, barges. They require a tugboat to move, IIRC.

glitterboy2098 wrote:plus, 50 to 100 miles is outside the national waters of many countries, i doubt other nations would like the idea of national prisons floating in internation waters.

So put them just inside US waters. That way anyone attempting to help a prisoner escape is prosecutable in the US rather than under international maritime law.
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Re: Penal System question

Unread post by Jeffrey W. »

I've enjoyed your insights. Intelligent comments by most everyone and an interesting thread to read this time. I hope this doesn't go too off subject by remarking to part of one comment that reads:
... i postulate the UN changing the wording of national waters to include anything a country can claim, releaving the UN of the burden of policing/protecting the undersea colonies, but at the same time sparking the global cold war...


Although I am never a defender of the UN or it's policies, nobody would make the mistake of allowing a vessel or undersea colony to claim the international waters that it rests in...(reminded of Gulf of Sidra)... international trade could be jeopardized, and war would be the only option, taking diplomacy right off the table.

Such an action, in my opinion, would contradict Rifts: Underseas and the flagged vessels found therein... (explained: Why be a flagged vessel? Just claim the waters as national waters, and control world shipping in the process.)

But still, it's both fictional and creative. Maybe the world's populace in the Golden Age would have had a similar reaction to such news as I did.

I believe as others have already indicated, the NAA would be softer, and probably go the route of drug rehabilitation for criminal behavior, instead of incarceration. (Manipulation of the human genome, mind, body, etc. doesn't seem to exactly be a problem in the Golden Age of Man, does it?) Incarceration might possibly be viewed as inhumane, costly, and undesireable.
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Re: Penal System question

Unread post by glitterboy2098 »

it was in response to a huge undersea "land rush" with every advanced nation establishing undersea colonies to mine resources, farm food, and generally support their burgoning population. the result of lots of valuable facilities in international waters producing valuable goods was a development of out of control piracy, claimjumping, and coporate warfare. since the UN was unable to police the oceans sufficently (not allowed to create it's own military, and seconded forces from member nations were unreliable), so they allowed the facilities to be clamed as part of a nation, thus making it that nations responsibilty to police and protect their own people.

disputes did arise, but generally the boundries didn't overlap much. the main problem was that suddenly the seafloor becomes strategic, and posession of the resources and facilities are something to fight over. thus leading to a situation with lots of sabre rattling and face offs that ultimately don't go anywhere, but generate lots of tension.
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Unread post by csbioborg »

glitterboy2098 wrote:
LostOne wrote:
the freezing idea might work, but prison is supposed to be a place where criminals are rehabilitated, not merely incarcerated. for best efectiveness, the prison itself needs to be a harsh life people would prefer to avoid, while at the same time a secure location where criminal activities can't occur. (part of the reason i like the prisons of Arizona, and the success they've had. simple housing, hard work, decent food. not comfortable, but not horrific.)


that is really a bit of a misnomer prisons are primarily designed as a deterrent mechnism. While there is a very small portion of funds dedicated to programs such as GEDs the underlying philophy of the American prison system is to discourage ciminal behavior and esepcially recidvism by making the experience as uncomfotable as fincailly and politically possible. Work programs within jails are there to make money for the state not to teach job skills. Arizona has had some success with low to meidum level facilites in the desert but they would not be feasbile in larger states. Moreover the unique ecology and climate of Arizona makes such programs possible.
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csbioborg wrote:Arizona has had some success with low to meidum level facilites in the desert but they would not be feasbile in larger states. Moreover the unique ecology and climate of Arizona makes such programs possible.

I really think Arizona needs to increase the size of those desert facilities and contract out to other states. That low cost uncomfortable temp living in tent style prison is probably a better deterrent than the temperature controlled concrete structures seen elsewhere.
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Jason Richards wrote:This is how I view the issue of submarine prisons in Chaos Earth: Imagine the outrage by human rights organizations, labor unions, and various interest groups



Those would be the first folks I'd have occupying those prisons.
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LostOne wrote:
csbioborg wrote:Arizona has had some success with low to meidum level facilites in the desert but they would not be feasbile in larger states. Moreover the unique ecology and climate of Arizona makes such programs possible.

I really think Arizona needs to increase the size of those desert facilities and contract out to other states. That low cost uncomfortable temp living in tent style prison is probably a better deterrent than the temperature controlled concrete structures seen elsewhere.


Several of my jiu jitsu buddies are or where prison guards. In San Deigo if you want to be a sherrif there is a 2 year minimum rotation as a guard. THrough them and through some of the criminal clinics I took in law school I am quite aware of the gross housing problems we have in CA. However, if I was a citizen of Arizona I don't know if I'd want the state to take on the burden of housing other states prisoners. It seems like there would be a consolidation effect where inmates from all the union woud get to know each other creating national crime orgs with Az as its center.
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csbioborg wrote:However, if I was a citizen of Arizona I don't know if I'd want the state to take on the burden of housing other states prisoners. It seems like there would be a consolidation effect where inmates from all the union woud get to know each other creating national crime orgs with Az as its center.

If that is truly believed to be an issue, you isolate them. There's plenty of desert area in Arizona. You have a different camp for each state, separated by ~200ft of space between fences so they can't get close enough to communicate with other states. Arizona collects money from the other states and sees income and profit from the prison system, and escape is unlikely if the camps are isolated enough. The reason citizens usually don't want prisons is because they're usually built in town or right outside of town, and if a prisoner escapes they're breaking into your house/car looking to hide out or make tracks fast.
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Re: Re:

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LostOne wrote:
csbioborg wrote:However, if I was a citizen of Arizona I don't know if I'd want the state to take on the burden of housing other states prisoners. It seems like there would be a consolidation effect where inmates from all the union woud get to know each other creating national crime orgs with Az as its center.

If that is truly believed to be an issue, you isolate them. There's plenty of desert area in Arizona. You have a different camp for each state, separated by ~200ft of space between fences so they can't get close enough to communicate with other states. Arizona collects money from the other states and sees income and profit from the prison system, and escape is unlikely if the camps are isolated enough. The reason citizens usually don't want prisons is because they're usually built in town or right outside of town, and if a prisoner escapes they're breaking into your house/car looking to hide out or make tracks fast.

Even though this may sound like a great idea, what happens is a town will eventually be built near such a location. Why? Because it is isolated, and people who work there will be wanting to spend money. First it may be a hotel, or a few restaurants, and whammo! you got a town.
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Tiree wrote:Even though this may sound like a great idea, what happens is a town will eventually be built near such a location. Why? Because it is isolated, and people who work there will be wanting to spend money. First it may be a hotel, or a few restaurants, and whammo! you got a town.

Keep residences at least 20-30 miles away, pay the guards mileage to get to work. Anyone that escapes and covers 20 miles of desert isn't going to be in great shape to resist recapture.
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Re: Penal System question

Unread post by csbioborg »

that's only part of the point. THere is a huge amount of drug traffkicking in jails. Guards get paid etc. You get HA from Wy they'll send guys down. You get crips from LA they'll send guys down. THe rasies the levels of criminals in state. THen even if you send the out of stateers home right away the instate Arizonian prioners will be released with lots more contacts. Drug Trafficking goes up etc
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Re: Penal System question

Unread post by Lt Gargoyle »

I would stick the prison in the artic or antartic. Once a month a fresh rotation of guards and supplies roll in. The warden and the power supply base is a minimum of 150 miles away.
the prison is kept at a comfortable 80 degrees of the inmates to feel nice and warm. nothing there to build or make any devices or cold weather gear to survive in the extreme cold. If the inmates riot or get to disorderly the guards fall back to special areas and the prison power is cut off until the inmates regain control of themselves. I have little doubt it would take much more then an hour.

As for the political aspect, thats not really covered either. so it is up to the individual GM. But seeing how many of the US Rights have been removed since 9/11 i could see the system under new management.
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Re: Re:

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mickeyknox77 wrote:
LostOne wrote:
Tiree wrote:Even though this may sound like a great idea, what happens is a town will eventually be built near such a location. Why? Because it is isolated, and people who work there will be wanting to spend money. First it may be a hotel, or a few restaurants, and whammo! you got a town.

Keep residences at least 20-30 miles away, pay the guards mileage to get to work. Anyone that escapes and covers 20 miles of desert isn't going to be in great shape to resist recapture.



Google tells me that the average daily march for a Roman soldier was 14-20 miles. I think by definition anyone that escapes and covers 20 miles of desert is probably going to be in excellent shape, much like a large percentage of incarcerated people are.



So just increase the distances. There is an optimal point where only an olympic level athlete would have a slim chance of crossing the desert without supplies. Remember that most deserts we think of get really hot in the day but freeze at night. But Antarctica is also a desert. Succumbing to the cold is a real possibility either way without gear.
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mickeyknox77 wrote:
LostOne wrote:
Tiree wrote:Even though this may sound like a great idea, what happens is a town will eventually be built near such a location. Why? Because it is isolated, and people who work there will be wanting to spend money. First it may be a hotel, or a few restaurants, and whammo! you got a town.

Keep residences at least 20-30 miles away, pay the guards mileage to get to work. Anyone that escapes and covers 20 miles of desert isn't going to be in great shape to resist recapture.



Google tells me that the average daily march for a Roman soldier was 14-20 miles. I think by definition anyone that escapes and covers 20 miles of desert is probably going to be in excellent shape, much like a large percentage of incarcerated people are.



So just increase the distances. There is an optimal point where only an olympic level athlete would have a slim chance of crossing the desert without supplies. Remember that most deserts we think of get really hot in the day but freeze at night. But Antarctica is also a desert. Succumbing to the cold is a real possibility either way without gear.
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Re: Penal System question

Unread post by Lt Gargoyle »

why would they not just use m.o.m. type conversion on the offender and correct his/her personality to fit into modern socity.
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Re: Penal System question

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Lt Gargoyle wrote:why would they not just use m.o.m. type conversion on the offender and correct his/her personality to fit into modern socity.


Because MOM conversion creates people who end up far more dangerous to modern society than they started.
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Re: Penal System question

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Lt Gargoyle wrote:why would they not just use m.o.m. type conversion on the offender and correct his/her personality to fit into modern socity.

Not every crime calls for capital punishment. I think forced brain alteration is about the same severity.
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Re: Penal System question

Unread post by Mech-Viper Prime »

Depending on the crime, there would be alot of different types of prisons,

The undersea ones or island ones for people you never what to see again.

The remote sub cargo hold could have holes in it and lets the water in and have the food sealed up tight in water proof wrapping, with AI sentries guarding certain areas, with weight sensors.
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Re: Penal System question

Unread post by Lt Gargoyle »

LostOne wrote:
Lt Gargoyle wrote:why would they not just use m.o.m. type conversion on the offender and correct his/her personality to fit into modern socity.

Not every crime calls for capital punishment. I think forced brain alteration is about the same severity.



Well prison is capital punishment. Depending on your thoughts it could be the prisoners or the tax payers being punished. I see the MOM systems being acceptable alternative to prison.

And we do not truely know what a hundred years of change will truely bring to the US as far as legal and political structure. What we have today maybe gone in ten years. And to assume nothing will change in either of those is foolish.
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Re: Penal System question

Unread post by glitterboy2098 »

prison is not capital punishment. capital punishment is defined as a punishment that puts a person to death for a crime.

so technically "death of personality" (to use a term from babylon 5) falls into a sort of grey area. it technically is not capital punishment, the individual is not killed. but since the personality who committed the crime is liminated, and another personality put in its place. which depending on how you look at it, is almost the same effect.

that said, the side effects of MOM tech are things i can't see pre-rifts society wanting to deal with in regards to reformed criminals (trading criminal records for insanity is not an ideal solution), psionic abilities weren't mature enough for it (and frankly we don't have canon 'mind rewriting' powers that i know of), and there aren't any reliable means of changing a personality through conventional means other than the ones already being used. psychiatric counseling and education.
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Re: Penal System question

Unread post by Lt Gargoyle »

glitterboy2098 wrote:that said, the side effects of MOM tech are things i can't see pre-rifts society wanting to deal with in regards to reformed criminals (trading criminal records for insanity is not an ideal solution), psionic abilities weren't mature enough for it (and frankly we don't have canon 'mind rewriting' powers that i know of), and there aren't any reliable means of changing a personality through conventional means other than the ones already being used. psychiatric counseling and education.


unless they are using them as the guine pigs. they could have other devices to use that are not discussed in the RPG such as tracking devices that can paraylze the nerve system if the criminal does not follow the rules. nano tech could do wonders to a person as well. And there is no telling what the government would be like in a hundred years. Look how much the United states has changed over the last hundred. and i imagine it will only get faster as technology grows and the people become less sensitive to things.
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Re: Penal System question

Unread post by keir451 »

A lot of interesting ideas here, but even if you set up penal colonies in some remote location and change out the guards often you still run the risk of soemone from the outside "getting to" one of the guards of getting on the replacement guards list.

The issue of criminal contacts inside of prison is a valid one, it happens too often today.

I disagree that your average prisoner who spends most of his time weight lifting would be capable of surviving a 20-30 mile hike thru the desert, esp. if he's got no supplies and no idea how to survive in said climate.

I like the under sea prisons best, minimal risk to civilians, no guards needed, though there is always the possibility that some prisoner might be smart enough to find a way to fool the sensors in the sub. Just hope it's not one of the really "bad" ones.

One would hope that by 2098 the gov't is addressing the real source of crimanl acivities; Lack of Education and Work Opportunities. I'd think that with the creation of the orbital colonies and all the new technologies there'd be more work that demands a higher level of education.
Also consider that in the orbital colonies there'd be no room for prisons, anyone commiting any of the "capital crimes" would simply be shoved out an air lock.
As for during the coming of the Rifts, alot of those prisons may become targets for certain creatures, either for recruiting minions or as sacrficial victims or just as an "all you can eat buffet". :twisted:
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Re: Penal System question

Unread post by Rimmerdal »

And some of the Prisons holding the worst would not likely be on any maps or public knowledge. Does inspire a a game idea though. A team like Taskforce X or Suicide squad Composed of Prisonors.

I Imagine they'd be the first ones Military would send in to hazardous missions Since the Cons are dead men anyway for there crime. Just be sure not to feed them any information you don't want the enemy to know.
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