Prison Sentence Reform

[Bala]

I realise that there is going to be stiff opposition to increasing prison times because hey, no one wants to vote to make things more difficult for themselves do they, whether they are a cop or a criminal. I am a cop in this server and I do think that the two-hour sentence cap leads to a lazy attitude to crime which lessens the impact of committing crimes or catching criminals for both sides. If you are doing illegal things out in the open because you don't care if you get caught then there is an imbalance that needs to be addressed there. 

What I'd like to achieve in with this suggestion

• Major Criminals Factions to have to re-think how they operate. There is a reason why they call it the criminal underworld. Criminals are far too obvious and brazen with their activities, partially because they know that at most, they'll do two hours in prison and that's that. I want to see Criminal Factions make it harder for cops to arrest them, not easier. 
  The reality is, it's often harder to catch a serial speed violator than a gang member in this server and that's pretty backwards.
   
• The Investigations Bureau, SWAT and Department of Corrections to have a bigger role in the catching and looking after of suspects. 
  The Investigations Bureau can spend days, even weeks building a case on a target and when it comes time to arrest them, they go away for 2 hours? The same goes for SWAT, you can spend half that person's sentence trying to find them.
  As for the prison and Corrections, that faction is never going to get any better than it is while it has 3-4 prisoners at a time. They have this gigantic new interior and all these members, but they spend half their time outside twiddling their thumbs waiting for scraps of role-play with prisoners. Prisoners are their roleplaying currency, like crime is to cops and gangs.
  People will say there is nothing to do in prison but then what is the point adding things if no one is in there to use them? It's a constant wheel.
   
• Prison sentences to reflect the crimes the person has committed. The higher the risk, the higher the punishment but still capping it at something that is fair and manageable on all sides.
  Under the current system, three Reckless Operation charges gets you the same time in prison as an act of Domestic Terrorism. 
   
• Prisoners not being subjected to double jeopardy when it comes to prison time AND the accompanying fine.
  As everyone is aware, when you get charged with something, you also get a fine that comes with it. I think a compromise of getting more prison time would be that your fine is reduced.
   
• Catching suspects using script means for PD to be harder.
  I understand some are upset about the 5% tip-off on imports so I feel that applying that same logic to police tapping your phone for example wouldn't be unreasonable. Police should be tested when it comes to catching criminals, the same as criminals should be tested when evading.

The Suggestions

Quote

Tiered Sentencing
There would be three tiers of sentencing and each would come with their own cap of possible time you could go to prison for.

• First Time Offender [Max Cap at 90 minutes, Requires No Previous Character Felonies]
• Frequent Offender [Max Cap at 180 minutes/3 hours, Requires Between 2-4 Felonies on Character, 25% reduction on the Fine]
• Serial Offender [Max Cap at 360 minutes/5 hours, Requires 5+ Felonies on Character, 33% reduction on the Fine]

The maximum prison sentence would be 5 hours. 
Also, your felonies would be calculated before being prisoned so if you had a clean record and charged with 5 felonies before being prisoned, you'd be classed as a Serial Offender when you were prisoned.
The felonies would obviously stack as well, so murdering 3 people wouldn't count as one murder felony, it would be three.

The goal here is to punish the serial offenders, not those that are just starting out. You want to give people time to learn about being a criminal before you throw the book at them.
Under this proposed system for example, a Charge of Murder would give you. Again 'Double Jeopardy' applies here, if you're getting less time, the fines higher. If you are getting more time, the fines lower.

• First Time Offender [90 minutes in Prison, $7,000 Fine]
• Frequent Offender [180 minutes (3 hrs) in Prison, $5,250 Fine]
• Serial Offender [300 minutes (5 hrs) in Prison, $4,690 Fine]

The Offender's Status would be on the MDC for Law Enforcement to see also, so they could see what sort of criminal they are dealing with.

Also, the thought behind the fine is that a lot of these serial offenders have so much money that fining them is at times irrelevant but also, demonstrates that both sides are willing to make some compromises.

 

Quote

The Reckless Operation of a Motor Vehicle Charges

This is currently set at 45 minutes but I feel that for a crime that the server gives you without any person to person role-play, the sentence should be lower. You are already paying a fine on top of that as well and I think we've established that people are going to speed regardless. As a cop, a lot of the criminals we process are Reckless Drivers now and it just seems a little cheap that we're catching people pretty much for only doing half a job. 

So my suggestion is to reduce the Reckless Operation charge from 45 minutes to 30 minutes which is the same amount as operating a vehicle with a suspended license.

I was told that making this suggestion would be pointless as it's something that City Hall decides on and can't be decided by normal means.

 

Quote

Wire Tap Phone Notification

Much has been made on here about the tip-off that PD receive when people are importing things. Personally, I feel that doing that is reasonable but then I also feel that if we're giving PD that opportunity, I think that when it comes to phone taps, criminals should have a percentage chance to be notified of their phone being tapped, possibly through the same source that's giving PD their information.

It means that we can't just automatically rely on that device to locate people, we have to use other means to catch people which is absolutely fine as long as the sentences match the effort.

 

Quote

Sentence Appealing

This is a topic that always gets brought up, "CoUrT SyStEm Reeeeee" but think in terms of logistics, the only way really to do any kind of appealing system is after you've served your sentence.

You can't do it before because you'd either essentially have to bail the suspect for lesser crimes, pending sentencing and keep him indefinitely in a holding cell for major crimes or you'd have to just recapture him all over again. You can't do it during because the amount of time it would take to process the appeal, you'd be out of prison already and you dont want people not logging in so they dont serve their sentence.

So my idea is pretty much..

• You can appeal the decision of your sentence AFTER you've served it but you need a minimum of a 3 hour sentence to appeal. This cuts down the amount of appeals to the ones that are the most impactful sentences.
• You make your case to the appeals board, which would consist of a high up PD representative, Ramon Carter and a non-Law Enforcement high up admin who will vote on the appeals. 
• If the appeal is successful and your sentence proved unlawful, the Police Department will have to pay you 5x the amount of your fine for being imprisoned and return any legal items i.e. vehicles, weapons to you. So for example, if you are sentenced for murder, you would recieve around $25,000 from the PD treasury.
• It is then up to the Police Department's internal affairs to sort the officer responsible, as he'd of committed wrongful arrest.
• This gives PD accountability for their arrests and also, consequences if they don't act properly when prisoning someone.

I was informed there is a system in place for people to do this already but I feel that making it a little more public and obvious, gives the impression that the Police Department has accountability for it's actions AND welcomes those actions being scrutinised.

 

Quote

Prison Job

Something that is often brought up is that there is nothing to do in prison so adding jobs to the prison would be a good idea. Could perhaps do something with the prison kitchen and have like the recipe system for jobs, you've got to create meals for the other prisoners. Maybe a laundry prison job etc..  The jobs would pay 75% of what the outside jobs pay, so you'd still be able to make a moderate income while in prison and you'd have something to do.

 

Quote

Early Release Program and Parole for Corrections Officers

This would be similar to the set-up for people requesting 'Death Role-play' in the server. If a player has role-played quite a bit during their time in prison and hasn't committed any further offences while in prison, they would be able to be released at any point once they'd served 75% of their sentence.

This encourages players not only to role-play with each other but also, to behave themselves while in prison. In my opinion, people do tend to go AFK or commit extra crimes which don't go punished while in prison and I think that it does kind of defeat the purpose.

In addition, if you took up the option to be paroled, the rest of your sentence would be suspended for a certain amount of IRL days. If you got arrested again during that time, the amount of time you had left on your old sentence added on to your new sentence. This would be done to try and encourage people not to constantly be going to prison every day, sometimes twice.

Under this proposed system for example, if you were in prison for a Charge of Murder and you were eligible for parole.

• First Time Offender [Min. 67 minutes (1 hr 7 mins) in Prison - 12 hr Parole window]
• Frequent Offender [Min. 135 minutes (2 hrs 15 mins) in Prison - 24 hr Parole window]
• Serial Offender [Min. 225 minutes (3 hrs 45 mins) in Prison - 48 hr Parole window]

If you got out at the earliest parole time and re-offend for a for a Charge of Murder as an example your sentence would be. If you served the full sentence, you'd be under no obligation for parole as you didn't take it.

• First Time Offender [112 minutes in Prison (1 hr 52 mins in Prison) ]
• Frequent Offender [225 minutes (3 hrs 45 mins) in Prison]
• Serial Offender [375 minutes (6 hrs 15 mins) in Prison]
   

[Boonkgang]

+1

[NikolaiStalingrad]

+10000000000000000000000000000000

[SilentVortex]

+1

[Jonaseriksen07]

-1 smh

[Pistol Pete]

+1. Good effort @GOAT! 

I do think before something like this is implemented, prison needs to be drastically improved.

As @MikeyyyG would say, "Prison is just AFK simulator".

[SmallboyRyan]

Definitely a huge +1. When I was investigating the Los Calaveras I spent about a month investigating it and going into the group, getting to know each and every person. It took me so much effort on an out of character level to create the casefile, caught individuals murdering LEO's, stealing, manufacturing drugs, robbing stores / players and committing mass murder and they all got 2 hours? lol. 

As well as this, I was in DOC yesterday and they've changed it so much and drastically improved it. I think now's a better time than any.

 

Huge +1.

[Cyphers]

Big +1 for this.

[JakeInnit_]

On a whole some great ideas which would definitely make prison RP more enjoyable and add some challenge for both criminals and police. The only thing I don't agree with is the prison time extensions as prison can be quite tedious. However, if your above suggestions get accepted and there is a drastic improvement in prison RP I can't see why sentences shouldn't be extended.

In short, prioritise developing prison RP, see if the state of prison RP changes then make an educated decision on extending jail sentences. 

 

Edited June 5, 2019 by JakeInnit_
Spelling mistakes

[alexalex303]

1 hour ago, JakeInnit_ said:

On a whole some great ideas which would definitely make prison RP more enjoyable and add some challenge for both criminals and police. The only thing I don't agree with is the prison time extensions as prison can be quite tedious. However, if your above suggestions get accepted and there is a drastic improvement in prison RP I can't see why sentences shouldn't be extended.

In short, prioritise developing prison RP, see if the state of prison RP changes then make an educated decision on extending jail sentences. 

 

Who is going to be in prison developing their RP if everyone gets out after an hour of watching netflix?

I know for a fact DOC has been trying very hard to keep activity in all timezones, even when the server has 80 people, they'll have two guards. There is no excuse.

[THNDR]

+1

[JakeInnit_]

14 minutes ago, alexalex303 said:

Who is going to be in prison developing their RP if everyone gets out after an hour of watching netflix?

I know for a fact DOC has been trying very hard to keep activity in all timezones, even when the server has 80 people, they'll have two guards. There is no excuse.

From my experience: I get put in a cell, I get uncuffed, guards walk outside, I wander around for a bit looking for people, find nothing and then AFK. I hope that once some fun features are added to the prison then people will feel less inclined to AFK their sentence. Yes I admit there will still be a few that choose to do that but you could easily remove the AFK timer to prevent this.

Some guards often don't feel the need or even want to RP with the prisoners once their jail time has started. I am unsure as to why, maybe getting some feedback from them would be useful.

I am a strong believer in the fact that we should trial features before just throwing them in and seeing what happens.

This is my final recommendation:
1. Implement new features to the prison so prisoners have new and exciting features to use while serving their sentence and remove the AFK timer.
2. Fix bugs and wait for suggestions how to improve the features.
3. Once the features are running smoothly then slowly increase prison times.

[alexalex303]

6 minutes ago, JakeInnit_ said:

Some guards often don't feel the need or even want to RP with the prisoners once their jail time has started. I am unsure as to why, maybe getting some feedback from them would be useful.

It's because people will rush them and attempt to kill them because there are no repercussions for doing so. If guards were able to grant early release, or extend sentences, this would not happen. It's a vicious cycle but guards will not interact with you because they will get attacked for no reason because of a lack of repercussions and you don't want to implement repercussions because guards will not interact with you.

[JakeInnit_]

Just now, alexalex303 said:

It's because people will rush them and attempt to kill them because there are no repercussions for doing so. If guards were able to grant early release, or extend sentences, this would not happen. It's a vicious cycle but guards will not interact with you because they will get attacked for no reason because of a lack of repercussions and you don't want to implement repercussions because guards will not interact with you.

In that case we need to enforce the DM rule more harshly on prisoners randomly attacking guards without a valid RP reason, this explains why guards detest RPing with prisoners. I agree there needs to be more repercussions for poorly behaved prisoners such as prison time extensions and solitary. This will prevent or at least deter prisoners from randomly DMing guards which will allow guards and prisoners to interact more positively and partake in prison activities.

[MSJC]

Thank you for taking the time to make this awesome suggestion. I hope that something comes from this, I see it as a massive improvement on the current system. +1

Edited June 5, 2019 by MSJC

[VomitSpawn]

+1

[DGanja]

-1 rarely even see cops the issue isn't that the sentence is too short it's the fact there's hardly any cops. Only been arrested 3 times since I started playing months ago. Smart from a market perspective since more people will need to spend 500 credits to change name .

[dawpi]

+9million

[NikolaiStalingrad]

Most people saying no are the chain felons :///////////////////////

A wonderful idea as it breeds more RP elements.

[Bala]

I did say in my original post that I can understand people not wanting to vote for suggestions that made their time in the server more difficult but if people can perhaps have an open mind and see that we can increase prison times if we do it the right way.

The goal isn't to fuck over criminals here, PD needs criminals, but it's to make crime make more sense and mean more to both sides.

No point in having a massive prison interior and a Corrections faction if we got no prisoners, but at the same time, we gotta make sure that the arrests are legit AND that people are getting the sentences they deserve for the crimes they commit.

[Wizzidy]

+1+1 I am against the previous suggestions of "max 8 hours" and stuff, but this is much more thought out... and it addresses some key factors a lot of similar posts did not, like an appeals system and some sort of accountability for PD, because right now PDs fun normally consists of them running around admin jailing people for automatic speed tickets... its a bit backwards.. There needs to be more to do at the DOC, more opportunity, and PD needs to stop throwing charges around without proof, and criminals need to act like peeling out in the DOC parking lot is not an easy risk for them to take. I like a lot of this, my only worry is it will be half implemented because the loudest voice in the server is PD with nearly 3 times the size of any other faction.... and it will just get worse... but if nothing is tried nothing will get better. So +1 for trying to do this (maybe not those exact numbers and values but overall)

[Wizzidy]

3 hours ago, DGanja said:

-1 rarely even see cops the issue isn't that the sentence is too short it's the fact there's hardly any cops. Only been arrested 3 times since I started playing months ago. Smart from a market perspective since more people will need to spend 500 credits to change name .

name changing doesnt fix anything because PD has begun ooc denying people and applying ooc knowledge to charges because why not...  also hardly any cops? 





I think you might be sleeping... I am more likely to see a cop than anything else in this city...

[Wizzidy]

4 hours ago, JakeInnit_ said:

In that case we need to enforce the DM rule more harshly on prisoners randomly attacking guards without a valid RP reason, this explains why guards detest RPing with prisoners. I agree there needs to be more repercussions for poorly behaved prisoners such as prison time extensions and solitary. This will prevent or at least deter prisoners from randomly DMing guards which will allow guards and prisoners to interact more positively and partake in prison activities.

yea dude I work at the DOC and honestly its not that we dont want to interact with prisoners but some days we cant get in the door because there are 9 inmates sitting there trying to punch at it like that would ever happen... everyone wants to kill a guard or break out even though they cant without admin approval... and we have no recourse... PD can charge somone for hours for minor infractions, but yesterday a gentleman tried to rp breaking a two by four table that shouldnt even exist in a prison into a "shiv" and then tried to PG hold it to my neck and I am not only supposed to RP this but I have to RP it knowing hes in there for 45 minutes and I have 3 more inmates coming in because everyone gets arrested for speeding...

[VeridianPhantom]

I support this completely. +1.

[Hilbert]

10 hours ago, Hoxton_Curry said:

I don't get caught often at all but when I do it happens at shitty times lets say I just launched my game planning to play for the rest of the day and I get caught in 30 minues of playing and there goes my time, wasted.

What Im trying to say is -1 to higher prison sentence until they make prison more fun because I at the moment I just have to AFK it

Everything else looks good 

Also I wouldn't mind a 10 hour prison sentence if PD stopped putting charges on me over my vehicle plates or player ID 

I gotta relog every time I escape from PD so they don't do that Player ID meta