| From: | James Lindsay <jlindsay@******.CA> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: Prison in Shadowrun |
| Date: | Wed, 10 Dec 1997 18:59:06 GMT |
> James Lindsay said:
>
> >On Mon, 8 Dec 1997 19:39:26 -0500, John E Pederson wrote:
> >> I would expect there to be both governmental as well as corporate
> >> prisons, probably with the corporate prisons run to make some sort of
> >> profit or at least off-set the costs associated with running the prison.
> >> Assuming they don't just execute criminals, rather than imprison them:P
> >
> >If a corp ran a prison, it could not execute its prisoners. This would be
> >the decision of a country's justice system.
>
> Any corp with the resources to have its own jails is going to have
> extraterritoriality, which means that they determine the prisoner's rights,
> and lack thereof.
Err, I wasn't aware that this thread assumed that the crime would take
place on corporate territory (and therefore be subject to corporate law).
I was simply postulating that if a criminal caught in the act of committing
a crime were sent to jail-- and government prisons did not exist-- a
corporation wouldn't kill those it was contracted to incarcerate in its
jails just to reduce operating costs.
Corporate jails and corporate law are a completely different matter, just
as a citizen of one country must abide by the laws of another country when
in that country (if this means you are shot dead for wearing orange on a
Tuesday, so be it). But if corporations exist that are contracted to
incarcerate prisoners found guilty in a federal court of law, they must
abide by the terms of that contract (and this would probably include the
job of care and feeding of said prisoners).
> The same laws that let them ignore gun control laws let them declare
> trespassing a capitol crime and cack runners as soon as the Mind Probe wears
> off. And Lone Star is just another corp.
But Lone Star doesn't work for itself like other corporations. It is a
corporation contracted out by the government to provide law enforcement to
those areas of the city not directly protected by the corps themselves.
Lone Star does not make the laws... it just enforces them. If they don't
do a good enough job, word will get out to the public and they will demand
that another corporation be hired to take its place. If the families of
incarcerated individuals get wind that the corporation controlling the
government's prisons is actually executing everyone that enters their
facilities, there would be a public outcry demanding that the contract with
the corporation be terminated. The government could even sue the
corporation for breach of contract.
James W. Lindsay Vancouver, British Columbia
"http://www.prosperoimaging.com/ground_zero";
Money talks... it usually says "bend over"...
