Reduce All criminal charges sentence length by at least HALF.

[Demonmit1]

Wow, what a controversial title. But yep, I'm actually suggesting that. Before you lose your mind over this or that, actually read the post before commenting.

To prevent this becoming some anti LEO conversation, here's some context.
I have mostly been playing LEO, with just about 1200 hours on the server
i have a criminal focused character with 1500 hours with experience as high command of an official faction
I have a Civ focused character with 1300 hours with experience as command of an official faction

This is not a Leo vs Crim debate and lets not make it that.

SO, the problem.

Max sentencing on the server is limited to 180 minutes. while this is great to reduce the impact of bad charges being placed, or charges stacked to a large amount causing high prison times, its created an unfortunate dynamic for criminals vs LEO that I think is one of the core problems on the server.

receiving a max penalty should be reserved for the highest crimes committed, or committing several violent crimes at once. This currently isnt how things work. Evading, with adding on additional charges, can very easily become max sentence. This puts criminal players into the mindset of, "I'm getting max time anyways, might as well shoot at them too to see how many i get, and get to use my gun before i lose it." Admin Lewis recently posted a QOL forum thread, and said one of the goals is to reduce how often people shoot. "I'm getting max time anyways, so i have nothing to lose" i believe is a core reason why people shoot at LEO. 

So why not make DOC better? well, that would be perfect, but that development is just not going to happen at this point. The simple solution is reducing sentence times. that way, big violent crimes will still get the max sentence, but a couple basic charges tacked onto a single evasion doesn't also boost you to max sentence.

Why not do this ICly through LRC? because the civilian/gov side of the RP is taken way more seriously than Criminal RP. no one in their right mind ICly would accept reducing all charges being halved. this is why it needs to be handled on an OOC level.

X charge shouldnt be reduced cause it doesnt make RP sense. A maximum sentence of 3 hours doesnt make RP sense. a domestic terrorist killing several people and burning a building down get the same time in prison as someone who evaded and gave up, but had a shotgun, a single blunt, and a ruined body armor on them. 

A massive reduction to all charges would allow for the modifiers to actually matter, and would differentiate serious violent situations from basic evading. Reducing sentencing time will reduce the mindset of, "I'm getting max time anyways" that causes a lot of situations where people are not valuing their lives.

What do you think? how could this be improved and implemented? 


EDIT:

wow, ok so a lot of people are not reading the post and are just reading the Title. typical.

so here's a TL;DR for you lazy fucks who just comment without reading.

The cap of jail time is at 180 minutes. if all charge times were reduced, a crim turning themselves in without attempting to evade or shoot at cops would no longer get max time in prison. If you currently evaded or shot at cops, your charges are heavily reduced down to max time. the problem is turning yourself in also gives you max time, so there's no point in doing that, so players think they might as well try to evade or shoot cause they have nothing to lose.

Edited June 2, 2025 by Demonmit1

[Rage.]

yeah huge +1

9/10 times i get arrested i end up serving half of my time sitting in a cruiser waiting to get transported anyways

Edited June 2, 2025 by Rage.

[alexalex303]

The solution to your problem is to increase the prison max time cap, not decrease charges. The cap was decreased from unlimited to 6 hours to 90 minutes (with diamond vip) now. It's basically nothing, and that's why it feels like charges don't matter.

Some charges have times like 30 minutes, if you reduce those to 10/15 minutes, might as well just remove them. It takes longer to process people. 

Literally all of the issues pointed out in this thread would be fixed if the cap was increased back to 6 hours, which is still reasonable. It would allow you the feeling of progressive getting worse times as you do more crimes, and it wouldn't make a 15 minute processing time feel like half or your sentence.

We are in this situation only because the cap kept getting lowered over and over.

Edited June 2, 2025 by alexalex303

[Bala]

It's not an answer to the problem, it's just creating another issue.

This would reduce the consequences a player faces for being caught even more than VIP and the last round of reductions did. Not only would that undermine that part of the server, it would severely impact the amount of activity that the DOC faction has and the inside of the prison is literally the only thing they have.

Prison is shit. Crims know it, Cops know and DOC knows it. When I say shit, I don't mean your character will hate to go there, I mean it's a negative playing experience.

I wouldn't want to lock someone away there for more than a couple hours, for any crime really. But at the same time, if they are in there for a flying visit then out again before the ink is dry on their paperwork, then whats the point?

I don't believe that most cops enjoy having to do the mugshot RP, fuck about with the evidence and your legal possessions then spend five minutes writing up an arrest report about it, that is most likely never going to be spoken about again, but we have to do that to prop up the legal system we've shoehorned into the server.

They need to tone the VIP discount on prison time down. If you are going to reduce anything to do with prison, reduce the fines. Then stop fucking about with the prison times and actually put a little bit of effort into making the prison a more bearable experience. Not digging tin out of a prison yard or playing AFK simulator.

Edited June 2, 2025 by Bala

[DoubleA]

Me and Tim were talking about this - and it really changes how RP goes. People have heavies and go "well, already at a max sentence, might as well try and shoot my way out cause its not extra time" and I think that promotes poor RP and actually promotes PVP vs LEOs.

 

Changing the charges by 50% would be genuinely better than anything with the prison cap. DOC is an AFK sim anyway

23 minutes ago, alexalex303 said:

Some charges have times like 30 minutes, if you reduce those to 10/15 minutes, might as well just remove them. It takes longer to process people. 

Correct and some of them you dont need to change, but at the same time you shouldnt have every single charge forcing you into DOC. Some charges that are 30 dont need to go down to 15, but even 20 would be better. Its not about "stay in jail less!" its about balancing how things are. 

5 minutes ago, alexalex303 said:

We are in this situation only because the cap kept getting lowered over and over.

I disagree, we lowered the cap because we need more RP, not more AFK DOC RP. If DOC was renevated then I could understand not worrying about it, but sadly that is where we are at. The limits are perfect imo, 3 then 5 if you cant pay your fines. But you were a leader of a criminal org, and youve been here for a while, how does it make sense that you can get 10 murders of a gov, and be the same as evading, class 2, attachments, and class 1? You dont shoot you still get the same time. That is completely skewed. I was also the one who got in trouble back in the day for cutting peoples prison times by 30 mins for giving ATTEMPTED evasion. That would be something that would work, giving attempted evading if they TRY to evade and fail, and if they successfully do and we have positive ID, we give them the full hour.

 

Big +1 - just need to look into what charges to change and which to leave, and how to balance things to scale AWAY from solely PVP

[Spizor]

I don't mind having lower time charges, but, I do disagree with the comment of "oh we have heavies might as well shoot cos we're already at max sentence". No. You have a heavy, say you have drugs on you as well, you don't get max sentence. But because you don't want to lose them, you decide to evade, now your time is even longer. Because you also failed to evade, you say fuck it, let's shoot them. Now you're at max sentence. The problem is the mindset here, not the charge time. 

[Demonmit1]

53 minutes ago, alexalex303 said:

The solution to your problem is to increase the prison max time cap, not decrease charges. The cap was decreased from unlimited to 6 hours to 90 minutes (with diamond vip) now. It's basically nothing, and that's why it feels like charges don't matter.

the part of the charge that matters is the fines. Sure, we could increase the cap if DOC was remotely anything close to being worth playing inside of, but its not. theres nothing worth doing, no RP to be had, all it is is an AFK timeout box for 99% of crims. DOC isnt going to get an update to make it better for people to play and have fun inside, so reducing the overall time spent in DOC i think is the correct way to go. 

Time spent in custody, being transported, time served in prison having to AFK it, then time spent to earn the money back that was lost adds up to a HUGE amount of time for players going to prison. the least enjoyable process of that is DOC cause there is no Interaction, no RP, nothing. so reducing the time players spend there is the right way to go, since we are not getting any DOC dev work before GTA 6 and the server dies off.

[Demonmit1]

7 minutes ago, Spizor said:

The problem is the mindset here, not the charge time. 

SUPER common charge list:

Class 1 - 30 minutes
Modifications - 25 minutes
Class 2 - 60 minutes
Drugs while armed - 25 minutes
suspended license - 25 minutes
face Concealment B - 10 minutes

175 minutes, 5 short of max sentance. the difference here between this and attempting to evade is 5 minutes. the difference here between shooting or not shooting, is 5 minutes. ditch the class 1 for body armor as a felon, or add in body armor as a felon, etc etc. it ads up to max time or basically at max time for just turning yourself in. its dumb.

tack on resisting and failure to comply, since thats still a common double charge that gets placed, and again, no violence, still get max sentence.

Edited June 2, 2025 by Demonmit1

[Spizor]

So to be clear, you want criminals to be able to carry a fully kitted loadout and evade and shoot at cops while barely facing any consequences? That just sounds silly imo. You don't need to carry two different gun classes on you. A suspended license does not grant you jail time. You also are not required to carry armor, or modifications. 

[Demonmit1]

Just now, Spizor said:

So to be clear, you want criminals to be able to carry a fully kitted loadout and evade and shoot at cops without facing consequences? 

no. I want criminals to be able to carry a fully kitted loadout to have a reason to just cut their losses and not attempt to evade or shoot, because the time in DOC between just turning over your gear and taking the loss would be SIGNIFIGANTLY less time than attempting to evade or shooting.

i guess i didnt explain my POV super well. currently a full kit turning themselves in gets the same time in DOC or almost nearly the same time in DOC as if they attempted to evade or if they shot at cops. if you turn yourself in you should have less time. but because the max time is 180 minutes, the full kit reaches nearly 180 minutes, while the attempted murder + evading gets lowered to 180 minutes.
 

3 minutes ago, Spizor said:

You don't need to carry two different gun classes on you.

Yet this is highly common. Suppressed .50 for quiet, long range shooting, with a pump for when shit hits the fan. the amount of people I've arrested with this exact kit is wild. .50 plus pump is the default LEO kit too, theres a reason why its used by crims all the time, its incredibly versitile.
 

4 minutes ago, Spizor said:

A suspended license does not grant you jail time.

yes it does?

VM02 - Operating a Vehicle with a Suspended License

Operating a vehicle when driving privileges have been revoked/suspended.

---

SENTENCE & FINE	DRIVER LICENSE SUSPENSION	TRUCKER LICENSE SUSPENSION	WEAPON LICENSE SUSPENSION	PILOT LICENSE SUSPENSION
25 months $1,500	Suspend 1 Day	If Used 1 Day	Intact	Intact

[Bobbias Willis]

+1, at the end of the day its a video game. We all come to have fun and RP, we don't come to sit in a virtual cell for 3+ hours. I agree with the fact that all charges should be decreased by 50%, I think that's way more fair than what we have now. I also think that the license suspension time is dumb, its crazy I have to wait a whole IRL day to drive a car in game, What do they expect us to do? Walk everywhere? Then when I do get caught with a suspended license, I get it suspended for another 24, and all the fines, police adding unnecessary charges, and a bunch of DOC time.

Edited June 2, 2025 by Bobbias Willis

[alexalex303]

With the mentality that DOC is an AFK zone and nothing good can ever happen there, you might as well remove prison times entirely. It's your choice to go AFK in DOC, not the script, not the guards.

Look at what the girlies did when they got arrested for max time, they made a pretend music video. IN DOC. ACTUAL ROLEPLAY. But it's easier to just say its an afk simulator and not even try.

 

[RustyOsprey2]

In my opinion, reducing some of the felonies by maybe 25%, and increasing the max jail time could work tbh. 

[tuccci]

I'm on the fence about this. On one hand, I agree with Alex, over the years, we've gotten a lot softer on the sentencing for criminals, I'm sure people who used to do 12 hours, and had to do so online, thought hard about how they would execute their crimes, considering the massive consequences that it might entail. 

The idea that PVP occurs because people know they're already at max time is silly. People RARELY  consider their consequences until after the fact.

People PVP because it's what they want to do; other people RP because it's what THEY want to do, they aren't having their hands forced by the mathematics of the penal code. 

I really think that even if we capped prison at 1 hour, people would still complain about it, and PVP just as much (50% more actually now that they're in prison less time) 

probably because at the end of the day, if you want to play some drug dealer simulator, Prison Simulator doesn't scratch that itch. You're never going to be happy with getting arrested or going to prison, unless it's something you set out to do. 

On the other hand -

Doing the job properly, or extending arrest or questioning RP, is seen as some sort of OOC punishment. So I could feel less bad about this if the charges were a bit shorter, I really doubt it though, reducing charges will make the arrest the longest part of IC punishment, so I doubt people will be looking to extend it further.

I'd also technically get to arrest people 50% more often, as someone could fit 2 prison stays into a 2-hour gaming session rather comfortably.

Most importantly

Snitch for less time

Edited June 2, 2025 by tuccci

[RJThompson]

2 hours ago, tuccci said:

The idea that PVP occurs because people know they're already at max time is silly. People RARELY  consider their consequences until after the fact.

no it isn't, we fight because either way its max time. might as well have the gun with it. simple as

6 hours ago, Spizor said:

So to be clear, you want criminals to be able to carry a fully kitted loadout and evade and shoot at cops while barely facing any consequences? That just sounds silly imo. You don't need to carry two different gun classes on you. A suspended license does not grant you jail time. You also are not required to carry armor, or modifications. 

Mr George hill, you literally have a crim. we have played together and when we did. we had 1 heavy and 1 50 when we got arrested, you know people carry two classes man come on now. and your saying consequences like this is real life, this is a game. its supposed to be fun man. not feel like I'm logging in to going jail and waste hours of my time for afk guards and people in jail afking their time.

5 hours ago, alexalex303 said:

With the mentality that DOC is an AFK zone and nothing good can ever happen there, you might as well remove prison times entirely. It's your choice to go AFK in DOC, not the script, not the guards.

and this is a GAME, why do LEOs keep forgetting that. the less time people spend in jail, the more fun you guys get arresting crims. why would you want it more boring for you guys? like Alex youd been non stop having fun if crims didnt know getting arrested was 3 hours long. some people wanna play for 2-3 hours a day and your gonna keep them locked up the entire time. its boring, and i have 5k hours. there nothing to do in jail so to say "just rp" when i have done jail rp for hours and hours on end is just because you have mained pd for so long. like i enjoy 1 hour in jail to socialise and fuck around etc but 3 hours long is absolutely mental. its demotivating and makes criminals on the server not want to rp or even be around cops....

 

 

if a cop that has equal hours on both sides says it needs changing without being bias. then it probably needs changing.....

[addybeta]

Im a cop that plays both sides (kinda), and I think it needs changing. 1 hour for trying to get away is mental. Cut that in half like we did with Class 1 firearm. It used to be a 60min charge, but is now 30 minutes. 

[tuccci]

46 minutes ago, RJThompson said:

no it isn't, we fight because either way its max time. might as well have the gun with it. simple as

  

"We" is a little unfair, as plenty of people choose roleplay over PVP.

Believe it or not, plenty of people who evade with a gun don't get out and shoot it as soon as the vehicle stalls, and most people aren't kitted out with 2 guns, Kevlar, and crack when they are finally caught.

From a roleplay perspective, you'd have to play a pretty reckless criminal to say "welp, I'm going to jail, may as well get shot by 6 cops 15 times while I'm at it"

40 minutes ago, RJThompson said:

if a cop that has equal hours on both sides says it needs changing without being bias. then it probably needs changing.....

Alex has equal on both approx. 

[astrx]

Although I agree a SMALL decrease across the board could benefit the server, I have to agree and echo what @Spizor has stated. The mindset of the criminal community here is what the issue is, always wanting to do things but then complain when you get charged for it. 

If your mindset is, fucking let's do crimes then when we get caught let's shoot the cops whilst we are heavily outnumbered ( this is just a singular example, the same goes for other situations too). I have to ask if you can truly gauge what roleplay is actually about. Following this, after doing all of your crimes and getting the time because of your decisions, making a thread about it and complaining is truly remarkable. 

My criminal doesn't get arrested very aften because I choose not to make silly decisions to lessen any mistakes I could make. If you want to shoot cops and you get caught lacking, then that's on you, you have to deal with the time you have been given. I personally do not like going to DOC, not because it's an "AFK Simulator" which is a terrible thing to call it by the way, mostly because I don't want to do the time, so I don't do the crimes that would give me such time. If I do the crimes then I am extremely cautious which a lot of players are not. 

DOC doesn't have to be a place where you "have to sit AFK and wait for the jtime to run out", it can also be fun, the girlies showcased this. Whilst I was  SADOC Guard a couple of years back, we had a lot of fun with the players inside of there, always letting people do things and also joining in on activities, now I cannot comment on what they do now as I am unsure, but I am sure that if you offer roleplay, people will join in.

Additionally, as @alexalex303 has also stated, the charges max cap has already been reduced, twice. I am unsure of how much further you want that to go. Say we do get another decrease, I can guarantee that another thread like this will pop up in the future, wanting another decrease.

TLDR; Stop making decisions you cannot stand the consequences, have fun, make roleplay and don't just sit AFK, then magically and all of you troubles will go away. 

[Kazjii]

A few things to note for the overall transparency of this thread, from the perpsective of a staff member that plays LEO but has played crim in the past - your forewarning, I am not responding to comments or participating in any discussion going past this, but I feel it is necessary that alot of frustrations be put into perspective:

• The current system for charges is amazingly more adaptive than what it used to be, here is a breakdown.
  • Criminals complained about high costs everywhere
    • Jail fines were heavily reduced to assist crims in not being essentially wiped of financial assets if they caught themselves in a heavy situation. Some people being fined upwards of $150-200k. This simply does not happen anymore.
    • The cost to import guns is laughable from what it use to be. And it shows. Ask any LEO player or crim for that matter, the criminal side of RP is a militia. There is absolutely no reason criminals should be running around like Operation Desert Storm. Multiple "gang members" running around with combat MKII's with body armor is something you would NEVER see in previous times - it now happens daily.
    • Conclusion: The server has drastically tried pivoting towards abiding by what criminals wanted forever, lesser charges and cheaper ways of living. It did so, but nothing is ever enough. You are here to RP, this is not Solar, if you decide to go on a rampage with your militaristic weaponry, you will unforutantely need to take accountability for your actions.
  • In the same motion, charges held less jail time, even more if you had VIP.
    • Jail times have also taken reductions when compared to previous times. The people complaining about long jail times are the ones who: 
      • (A) Have an amazingly long record of shooting at cops or being a violent criminal. If you have a record, you typically will get a less lenient treatment when charges are applied.
      • (B) Think that every situation has to be a John Wick film. YOU decided to evade, YOU decided to roll with 2 (sometimes 3 for some reason?) class of weapons, YOU decided to roll around with body armor, YOU decided to have blunts in your pocket, YOU decided to wear a mask, YOU decided to organize a 15 man ambush, YOU decided to run out of your car and try to get away after your crash. YOU choose what YOU do, not me, if youre worried about prison times, YOU can maybe not go so batshit crazy everytime you interact with LEO.
      • (C) Or you are just an agitator. It is free will for you to be an ass on a scene. Sure, if you want to carry that out, no one is stopping you. But truth be told, if you're being not-so-nice and making things more difficult, you may get additional charges that werent applied before. Maybe you didn't get face concealment and unlawful assembly, but a shrewd comment may be the difference that changes the mind of someone on scene. Easy as that.
    • "We sit on scenes for 20 minutes before ever going to DOC"
      • Scenes are tied up as fast as they can be. But you fail to realize that every situation has a triage of responsibilities. Medical treatment, getting cars taken care of, making sure the right charges are placed and to ensure you are not being under/over charged. 
      • We are an RP server, my job is not to speedrun your path to DOC. Its not. I have things that I need to figure out and confirm before you leave the scene, I am often working with 15-20 (sometimes a lot more in really large scenes) SD/PD/MD/DOC members to ensure everything is tightended up.
    • Conclusion: I understand the times may seem long, but they are very short when compared to what they use to be. I actually find VIP to be too forgiving - you can go and murder 30 cops, have 5 MG MKIIs on you, have 30 grams of coke on you, evade, torture 3 goverment employees and all be left with a 180 minute sentence. As someone said, you cross a line where it doesnt matter anymore - we have seen it already, it contributes and promotes criminals wanting to shoot more since they dont have much to lose. 
  • I dont disagree with everything said here, my closing remarks
    • I think that some charges could be reworked. Such as evading for example. I would not argue that 30 minutes is too minor.
    • Other charges, none that I will list, could be switched to a citation or lesser weighted time.
    • But the scale must balance out, I think if there were to be changes in decreasing times, there needs to be equal counter-weight in other areas. Such as, and crims do not crucify me here, I do not think murder charges should be affected by VIP status - there needs to be a risk of setting up an ambush. It happens multiple times a night, there is no risk because a large part of the populous is shielded by VIP reductions.

 

As I said, I am not responding to replies. I just wanted to provide some of my own perspective and ideas. I am not saying this thread is objectiviely wrong, but we have already made improvements to how the system works.

[alexalex303]

2 hours ago, RJThompson said:

if a cop that has equal hours on both sides says it needs changing without being bias. then it probably needs changing.....

okay so now that we have established that..

if you want a solution to risk versus reward, increase the prison cap from 2 hours to 6 hours, and then you will feel a difference between surrendering or shooting, lowering prison times any more is just comical.

[EimaTrG]

20 minutes ago, alexalex303 said:

okay so now that we have established that..

if you want a solution to risk versus reward, increase the prison cap from 2 hours to 6 hours, and then you will feel a difference between surrendering or shooting, lowering prison times any more is just comical.

I wouldn't disagree on the hour cap to go to 6 hours as a crim main and LEO second, the whole point of this in my opinion as Bala mentioned above is that DOC needs to be reworked as there is just no RP to be had in that place that is why everyone complains about the jail times. Until DOC is fixed to actually have some fun and not just be an AFK hour farm I say lower the times and when you have a good grasp on DOC that is when you up the whole time. DOC to put it bluntly is in a shit phase as of this moment. We are on a GTA V RP server and a huge aspect of Crim life just has no RP (DOC).

[PufferBulletin]

These suggestions could be described in one saying: "give someone a hand and they'll take your whole arm"

I can count on one hand how many times hardcore criminal said "you know what, i don't want more charges, I will comply" and even in those instances they would only give up because they committed a minor crimes.

As others have pointed out, if you want to fix that, you could decrease times for some crimes accordingly, but then remove the maxed out cap completely, that would give a reason to actually evaluate if it's worth to fight back and evade.

 

Edited June 2, 2025 by PufferBulletin

[Ronin]

I do believe there are IC routes for this suggestion to happen which is via the LRC. 

[Earl Mud]

I dont see an issue with lowering time. DOC feels like ooc punishment. Yes RP can be had but if you are solo arrested and no one is there the only RP to be had is fuck with cops and thats only if they actually respond to you cause one of my characters tried that and the cops were either afk or only would respond to other officers on radio. The punishment is already there when it comes to crime with losing licenses, being seen has a suspect more often when in an area, etc. Those punishments further rp DOC does not. 

Edited June 2, 2025 by Earl Mud

[Eliza]

DOC time is fine as is in my honest opinion. I hate going to prison just as much as everyone else, but there needs to still be repercussions to doing crime. Unless you’re out killing the entire force, most you’re realistically getting is maybe 2 hours.

I’ve mained a criminal character since early 2023.