NationStates Jolt Archive

Hello all,

Wanted opinions on the first draft of this bill. Any feedback welcome :

Stansfeldland Prison Reform Bill

ACCEPTS the rights of all nations to hold prisoners in captivity.

PREVENTS any country to cause harm to prisoner while they are in captivity in accordance with Article 5 of the Universal Bill of Human Rights. A country may not use torture as a way of extracting information from prisoners.

DOES NOT RECOGNISE any country will holds political prisoners.
DOES NOT RECOGNISE a nation that holds a prisoner without reason.

RECOMMENDS BUT DOES NOT ENFORCE that all laws within the nation regarding the death penalty for certain crimes be removed, and that instead give prisoners life sentence.

REQUESTS that nations to provide prisoners with at least 2 meals a day, a bed and a sanitation facility, including a shower and a toilet.
URGES nations to allow their prisoners outside once a day for 1 hour minimum.
FURTHER REQUESTS that prisoners be able to see their families at least once every three days.
FURTHER RECOMMENDS that nations respect the beliefs of individuals in prison, giving them the right to worship appropriately. In addition, the nation has to respect the belief of individual in terms of what they eat i.e. vegetarians and vegans.

ENFORCES a law stating that all prisoners must spend at least 25% of their sentence in rehabilitation.
URGES nations to have prisoners in rehabilitation for 50% of their sentence.

INVITES all members of the UN to join a prison reform committee to keep track of the state of UN member prisons.

Hello all,

Wanted opinions on the first draft of this bill. Any feedback welcome :

No problem. But you might want to take your name off of it. It appears egotistical and biases voters against you.

Stansfeldland Prison Reform Bill

ACCEPTS the rights of all nations to hold prisoners in captivity.

PREVENTS any country to cause harm to prisoner while they are in captivity in accordance with Article 5 of the Universal Bill of Human Rights. A country may not use torture as a way of extracting information from prisoners.

We already have a resolution on this. We don't need another one.

DOES NOT RECOGNISE any country will holds political prisoners.
DOES NOT RECOGNISE a nation that holds a prisoner without reason.

Define "political prisoners."

RECOMMENDS BUT DOES NOT ENFORCE that all laws within the nation regarding the death penalty for certain crimes be removed, and that instead give prisoners life sentence.

Remove this section. Otherwise, it'll just draw opposition from supporters of the death penalty, such as myself.

REQUESTS that nations to provide prisoners with at least 2 meals a day, a bed and a sanitation facility, including a shower and a toilet.
URGES nations to allow their prisoners outside once a day for 1 hour minimum.

Err, the second one isn't such of a good idea when you consider what I do with prisoners. They need space suits to go outside. Otherwise, they die.

FURTHER REQUESTS that prisoners be able to see their families at least once every three days.

Not going to happen in my nation. Due to the method of dealing with them.

FURTHER RECOMMENDS that nations respect the beliefs of individuals in prison, giving them the right to worship appropriately. In addition, the nation has to respect the belief of individual in terms of what they eat i.e. vegetarians and vegans.

Vegetarians and vegans are forced to eat meat due to it being a species dietary requirement.

ENFORCES a law stating that all prisoners must spend at least 25% of their sentence in rehabilitation.
URGES nations to have prisoners in rehabilitation for 50% of their sentence.

Define "rehabilitation," as I just have them work off their sentences on orbital platforms. Saves money, isolates them from society, and keeps them from escaping.

INVITES all members of the UN to join a prison reform committee to keep track of the state of UN member prisons.

Hmm. Not bad.

My only real problem is that Mr Smith (someone who is now imprisoned) blew up part of an office building because he opposed the way the government was run. So technically he could be classed as a political prisoner.

Would I still be prevented from holding him?

The intent of this proposal is good, and I plan to approve of it with some revisions.

I think you should focus on setting up a Prison Reform commitee in every nation who will then make rules (such as going outside for an hour) for themselves, following the human rights resolution.

So, basically make your resolution enforce the fact that prisoners are people too, and covered by the human rights resolution, and add a Prison Reform commite which will ensure that prisoners have their basic needs met.

Basic needs will include food, water, shelter, a toliet and bathing facilities - everything else is up to the individual nation.

I'd definatly approve of that.

Oh, and I forgot - for the political prisoner, this needs to be defined before I can address this point.

Wait, if I hold a pirsoner for political reasons, or without reason, the UN will no longer recognize my nation? Isn't that changing the game mechanics? Because, a nation not recognized by the UN can't be a member nation.

I don't think that is what he meant - I think he means that the proposal does not recognise the right of any nation to hold political prisoners.

It's possible that part might need editing to be cleared up a little :}

Err... what about nations that, well, don't have prisons? It is allowed under daily issues.
Or will this have much the same effect as the ballast water resolution for landlocked nations?

Here it is again, however I need a bit of help defining rehab.

Prison Reform Bill

ACCEPTS the rights of all nations to hold prisoners in captivity.
ALSO ACCEPTS the rights of all nations to indeed not have a prison system at all.

DEFINES a political prisoners as a person who acts against the governing party in a violent manner. However, these are not people who acts against the state, i.e. a terrorist.
DOES NOT RECOGNISE the rights of any country will holds political prisoners.
DOES NOT RECOGNISE a nation that holds a prisoner without reason.

RECOGNISES the right of any nation to enforce the death penalty as a means of sentence.

REQUESTS that nations to provide prisoners with at least 2 meals a day, a bed and a sanitation facility, including a shower and a toilet.
FURTHER RECOMMENDS that nations respect the beliefs of individuals in prison, giving them the right to worship appropriately.

ENFORCES a law stating that all prisoners must spend at least 25% of their sentence in rehabilitation.
URGES nations to have prisoners in rehabilitation for 50% of their sentence.

INVITES all members of the UN to join a prison reform committee to keep track of the state of UN member prisons.
URGES all nations to set up prison reform committees inside their own nation.

The following are recommendations and are not enforced by the bill:
URGES nations to allow their prisoners outside once a day for 1 hour minimum.
FURTHER REQUESTS that prisoners be able to see their families at least once every three days.
FURTHER URGES the nation has to respect the belief of individual in terms of what they eat i.e. vegetarians and vegans.

Your definition of political prisoner and terrorist are the same thing. If you act against the government in power in a nation, you are acting against the state.

Hello all,

Wanted opinions on the first draft of this bill. Any feedback welcome :

Stansfeldland Prison Reform Bill

ACCEPTS the rights of all nations to hold prisoners in captivity.

PREVENTS any country to cause harm to prisoner while they are in captivity in accordance with Article 5 of the Universal Bill of Human Rights. A country may not use torture as a way of extracting information from prisoners.

DOES NOT RECOGNISE any country will holds political prisoners.

Please rephrase the bolded part. Clarity is needed for what you are trying to get across.



DOES NOT RECOGNISE a nation that holds a prisoner without reason.

You will admit, "I want them in prison" is a reason?



RECOMMENDS BUT DOES NOT ENFORCE that all laws within the nation regarding the death penalty for certain crimes be removed, and that instead give prisoners life sentence.

I like this.

REQUESTS that nations to provide prisoners with at least 2 meals a day, a bed and a sanitation facility, including a shower and a toilet.
URGES nations to allow their prisoners outside once a day for 1 hour minimum.
[/quote]

*cough* "Outside" is subzero temperatures, and an hour in them could be seen as "cruel and unusual punishment". We are glad this is not manditory.



FURTHER REQUESTS that prisoners be able to see their families at least once every three days.
FURTHER RECOMMENDS that nations respect the beliefs of individuals in prison, giving them the right to worship appropriately. In addition, the nation has to respect the belief of individual in terms of what they eat i.e. vegetarians and vegans.

ENFORCES a law stating that all prisoners must spend at least 25% of their sentence in rehabilitation.
URGES nations to have prisoners in rehabilitation for 50% of their sentence.

INVITES all members of the UN to join a prison reform committee to keep track of the state of UN member prisons.

Interesting. Why 25% rehabilitation? We are curious as to the logic, and what you consider rehabilitating. A bit defining rehabilitation would be useful.

DEFINES a political prisoners as a person who acts against the governing party in a violent manner. However, these are not people who acts against the state, i.e. a terrorist.
DOES NOT RECOGNISE the rights of any country will holds political prisoners.
DOES NOT RECOGNISE a nation that holds a prisoner without reason.


A terrorist is not a political prisoner.

And someone who speaks out against a government, but does not act violently, would not be defined as a "political prisoner" by this definition.

I would think this would better stated as


DEFINES a political prisoner as a person who acts against the governing party in a non-violent manner, and/or a person who is imprisoned to prevent them from voicing dissent with the governing party.

PROCLAIMS no UN-affiliated nation has the right to hold political prisoners.


Might as well give it some teeth. This gives the right to imprison violent protesters and those who use violence, but not those who have a differing opinion.

Category? Strength?

If I may go on a slight rant here:

Vegetarians and vegans are forced to eat meat due to it being a species dietary requirement.You're just splitting hairs here. Obviously if a species must eat meat to survive, it won't be a vegan, and therefore won't be an issue in your nation. However, should you be holding, say, a Hyperborean, it would be a different situation, as their physical make up makes it impossible to digest animal byproducts, and are, from birth, vegan. Were you to hold one, this resolution would force you to provide for their... unique, dietary needs.

Not every word of every Resolution need apply to your nation. If it doesn't apply, you can ignore that part. No need to scuttle a Proposal because of it. I'm not picking on you specifically, DemonLordEnigma, it's more a complaint about a growing trend I'm seeing on this forum. More and more people are arguing against Proposals because of some quirky aspect of their nation.

For instance: Imagine we had another tree-based Environmental Proposal (hard to manage, I know). If my Mercurial Colony was in the UN, I wouldn't have them wax poetic about how the Proposal was worthless because they're in an environment with no trees. A simple, "We choose not to support this as it doesn't apply to us" would suffice.

With this specific Proposal, worry about the parts that critically need work (such as defining 'political prisoner'). If the Proposal said "REQUIRES that all inmates be given an hour outside, every day," then there are reasonable complaints that could be brought up, such as you being in space, or Vastiva being semi-arctic. Or even mentioning that hearding all the prisoners outside for their mandated hour of exercise might be a bad idea if there's an earthquake, tornado, or thunderstorm going on.

Again, folks, try not to get too hung up on idiosyncracies of your individual nations, and try to keep arguments general, especially when trying to edit a draft. The "My dictator thinks this Resolution is no good" stuff is really more appropriate for when the thing's actually up for vote.

I like this, generally. I think the inclusion of Vastiva's idea would improve it. I see why you chose 25%: It's just a nice round figure really. I would support this proposal, and encourage my UN delegate to endorse it.

This is an issue that people will argue over constantly. For example, my nation Chikatopia flogs (whips) criminals when they have commited a crime, and the Death sentance is very popular. I am for any methods that treats my criminals worse, as the saying goes " if you can't do the time, don't do the crime"

I am incrasing funds for military and police force. Just let these scumbags act wrongly in my nation and they will feel Chikatopias wrath to the fullest.

You're just splitting hairs here. Obviously if a species must eat meat to survive, it won't be a vegan, and therefore won't be an issue in your nation. However, should you be holding, say, a Hyperborean, it would be a different situation, as their physical make up makes it impossible to digest animal byproducts, and are, from birth, vegan. Were you to hold one, this resolution would force you to provide for their... unique, dietary needs.

Which means they had probably better not commit a crime in my nation.

Not every word of every Resolution need apply to your nation. If it doesn't apply, you can ignore that part. No need to scuttle a Proposal because of it. I'm not picking on you specifically, DemonLordEnigma, it's more a complaint about a growing trend I'm seeing on this forum. More and more people are arguing against Proposals because of some quirky aspect of their nation.

The quirky aspects of nations are being used so much because so many UN nations are quirky anymore. I try not to limit it to my own nation, but I must still bring it up from time to time.

In making resolutions, we need them to cover as many possibilities on the topic as possible. In some cases, certain possibilities are unneeded because they have already been covered. But, there are far more that haven't.

It's about like that proposal about the UN using the same type of electricity and same methods of transfering it. While it does apply to a large number of nations, it also disadvantages nations such as my own that are using more advanced forms of those systems by forcing us to use a more primitive system and it disadvantages nations that don't use electricity for some reason or are not advanced enough to use that technical level of it. And as time goes on, more and more of these proposals are running across cases where they don't cover the entire UN or, worse, actively discriminate against parts of it.

For instance: Imagine we had another tree-based Environmental Proposal (hard to manage, I know). If my Mercurial Colony was in the UN, I wouldn't have them wax poetic about how the Proposal was worthless because they're in an environment with no trees. A simple, "We choose not to support this as it doesn't apply to us" would suffice.

That suffices in cases where it doesn't affect you. This, however, is a topic which does affect my nation and could affect it drastically. So do a large portion of the proposals that pass through here.

With this specific Proposal, worry about the parts that critically need work (such as defining 'political prisoner'). If the Proposal said "REQUIRES that all inmates be given an hour outside, every day," then there are reasonable complaints that could be brought up, such as you being in space, or Vastiva being semi-arctic. Or even mentioning that hearding all the prisoners outside for their mandated hour of exercise might be a bad idea if there's an earthquake, tornado, or thunderstorm going on.

Again, folks, try not to get too hung up on idiosyncracies of your individual nations, and try to keep arguments general, especially when trying to edit a draft. The "My dictator thinks this Resolution is no good" stuff is really more appropriate for when the thing's actually up for vote.

If we nip something in the bud now and have it altered to cover those indiosyncrasies, later on the author has a greater chance of getting votes and not having as strong an opposition. There will still be many who argue against and oppose it, but every additional vote accounted for is helpful.