NationStates Jolt Archive

Not entirely, as our Country, The Grand Duchy of Count Ivy, has a handful of jails, but not enough. This raises crime factors in our country. Should we try to make more, our keep it the way it is?

Depends. Are you talking of prisons as a place where epople just sit for several decades and live on tax money, or prisons where people sit for several decades working off their debt to society.

Where they work for society to pay their debts.

no prisons=bad
too many prisons=bad

You should build more, but not too many.

We prefer not to use prisons whenever possible - prisons don't provide any recompense to the victims. We also don't like the phrase 'debt to society'. That implies that the criminal has harmed this nebulous 'society'. They have taken someone's stuff, or killed someone, or harmed them in some way. That person deserves recompense and it's not the governments responsibility to give it. The criminal must make amends - either with his or her life, or by replacing the goods lost three times over. The government's responsibility is to make sure they make those amends and of course catch the criminal in the first place.

Build more prisons. For criminals who commit a crime for a third time, execute them. The alternative is that criminals will have to be let out early due to prison overcrowding. Also, if you don't have the death penalty, repeat criminals will be costing society a lot of money.

Where they work for society to pay their debts.

Allright, here's how Weyr does it . . .

Three crimes: Murder, theft, malicious manipulation.

Murder = killing someone who has not attacked them first
Theft = stealing something, including ideas, items, etc
Malicious manipulation = manipulating someone with the intent of either causing harm to that person or to another person. For example: blackmailing someone to commit murder; or taunting someone to attack you so you can kill them.

Within 7 days of apprehension a jury that is elected from the area where the person was captured tries that person.

The court reviews all the evidence, hears the testimonies, etc. In general, the court simply gathers information.

At the end, the court issues a monetary fine based on:
-The damage done
-Cost of capturing the defendant
-Cost of trial

The person then has to repay the monetary fine.:
-Murder generally costs in the range of US$30,000 for old geezers who are unemployed to US$500mil for professional 24-year-old alchemists/mages. The price tag is a direct result of the function of the cost of raising/training the victim and the contribution he would make over a lifetime of work.
-Theft is the direct monetary cost of the items stolen that could not be returned.
-Malicious manipulation is the cost of the damages done by/to the person being manipulated. The person who was manipulated still has to pay for whatever crimes he was tricked/forced into doing.

Usually the government places the person onto the highest cost-product ratio job that he is capable of doing.

Cost-product ration is [the price of the product generated] over [the cost of generating that product].

Repeat criminals:

The third time someone is captured, they are forced to work off their court fine. Afterwards. . .

-They get thaumaturgically and physically branded on either the forearm or the shoulder.
-Get a GPS tracker implanted directly into their brain. The device is engineered to directly interface with their central nervous system, such that removal will often cause major neural damage.
-Dumped on the other side of the planet

If they return, they get stopped at the border or at the airport/seaport.


If they get into Weyr, they get another fine that makes them repay the cost of capturing them, an then once again they get dumped on the other side of the world.

How can you ever have a lack of prisons? Jail cells can hold more than just one person you know. They actually can hold up to 50. And if all of your jail cells get filled up, just start executing people. Start with the most severe crimes and work your way down until you have room again.