 Shadow Census, A Population Breakdown, recently updated |
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 Dec 28 2007, 08:47 AM
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#26
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Running Target  Group: Members Posts: 1,326 Joined: 15-April 02 Member No.: 2,600  |
I've used Contact Webs for other games, and its helpful particularly when you have a lot of factions and individuals moving in different directions. Vampire probably got me started on that. Its odd I've never thought to do it in SR, considering how much Contacts are a part of the game, but here we are. Part of the reason is until I really started putting numbers down on paper, the Shadows were basically a big amorphous blob that anything could come wandering out of.
Not necessarily. I think it might if the GM said there were no runners of a particular rating in a given city, and then once the PC's hit that level they're encountering Ultimate runners every week. Or if Initiates are incredibly rare until the mage in the group initiates and gets Masking, and then there are initiate magicians working the door at every downtown supper club. Although I can buy the theory of parallel development, that other teams are advancing as well as the pcs (or declining), so that the group and their competitors might come up together through the ranks. How many ultimates you can have in the game (0, 2, 10, or countless) is very much a question of scale, and thats personal preference. The way I'm envisioning it, if there were two Ultimate teams in one city, there would be some sense of This town ain't big enough for the both of us. Let's say that the ratio of runners is exactly as I've described, and something happens that drastically changes things, like a major military conflict in North America between nations and megacorporations; mass chaos, anarchy and war. Overnight, mercs and shadow people come flooding in to, among other places, Seattle, while at the same time people who don't like war ("sissies" and the like) go flooding out. The percentages wouldn't change that much for me. 50% of the runners would still be Inferior, and so on. But the base numbers would change (going from 500 to say 10,000), and the stats on the ratings would also change. Ulitmates now have average Dice Pools of 30+, Superior 22+, and so on, until the Inferior Runners are the Archetypes in the book. Street Samurai become dime a dozen. The Superior runners last week are now thick as flies, and comparatively, they're just considered Competent. The top 1% of the runners will be considered Ultimate, the bottom 50% Inferior. (Keep in mind that 50% of all doctors finish in the bottom half of their class.) But what those ratings mean and how many there are total depends on where you are, and more importantly the scale of the game. Its the classic Fish/Ponds of Varying Sizes Metaphor. |
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Dec 28 2007, 10:24 AM
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#27
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The ShadowComedian Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 14,538 Joined: 3-October 07 From: Hamburg, AGS Member No.: 13,525 |
THAT one could basically be explained away as allways having been that way and the now initiated mage just now gets the chance to even notice them being initiated |
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Dec 28 2007, 10:27 AM
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#28
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Immoral Elf Group: Members Posts: 15,247 Joined: 29-March 02 From: Grimy Pete's Bar & Laundromat Member No.: 2,486 |
Yeah, but Mercer's not really talking about the PC's perceptions of the NPC's power levels, but their actual power levels.
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Dec 28 2007, 10:45 AM
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#29
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The ShadowComedian Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 14,538 Joined: 3-October 07 From: Hamburg, AGS Member No.: 13,525 |
*shrugs*
Reality is HIGHLY subjective based on Perception . . you might see a tall, blonde girl and think amazone, i might see the same girl and think valkyrie . . if you don't percieve them as being masked magicians, they are not magicians to you but simple mundane people i'd say O.o |
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Dec 28 2007, 11:59 AM
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#30
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Immoral Elf Group: Members Posts: 15,247 Joined: 29-March 02 From: Grimy Pete's Bar & Laundromat Member No.: 2,486 |
Ok, let me out it another way then. Mercer is referring more to the NPC's out-of-game statistics than their in-game personas.
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Dec 28 2007, 12:17 PM
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#31
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,326 Joined: 15-April 02 Member No.: 2,600 |
Merver? Man, that's an unfortunate typo. ("Merver" to me sounds like the name of a guy who's a chromosome short and working the night shift at the Stuckey's down by the highway. But that's here nor there.)
A GM can justify anything after the fact. But if the GM starts using a lot of initiates after a pc picks up Masking, it really just nerfs Masking and at least part of the player's decision to take Masking was that initiates are rare, and so the power will occasionally work. (Does that sentence make any sense at all? I've read it five times and I'm still not sure. I think this "Merver" thing has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.) I find having some rough numbers sketched out beforehand makes the game more consistent. When I am pulling things out of my ass as a GM, I have a framework to work with so I don't end up out in the tall corn. Consistency is for me a big part of the verisimilitude. If I have an idea of who the big names in Seattle are, I can mention them here and there. They don't just show up in the first run where they're important. It gives a campaign that lived in feel. Little touches like that can go a long way in selling an idea to the players. |
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Dec 28 2007, 01:34 PM
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#32
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 3,009 Joined: 25-September 06 From: Paris, France Member No.: 9,466 |
:D Same perception/reality thing here: is it that he has a lot of characters or just that he talks a lot about them? On a more serious note, I like this idea but I think the next step is to consider how many runs there are in a year for all these runners. |
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Dec 28 2007, 02:03 PM
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#33
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Awakened Asset Group: Members Posts: 4,464 Joined: 9-April 05 From: AGS, North German League Member No.: 7,309 |
The number of runners that feels right is a matter of perception.
A working running community requires a large and qualified infrastructure. Gear, hideouts, even some protection by not being the only chromed monster in town come to mind. So Seattle should hold the runners for most surrounding towns and larger parts of the NAN. Once a certain infrastructure is present, the size of the running community would steadily increase until demand is met. Demand would be pretty large. Consider our world and professional criminals for hire. There would be several hundred execs in any mayor town with ideas how a run could improve their career. Add to that the victims of crimes who want revenge, which certainly do not decrease in number from the first part. There also needs to be a definition of runner. Mercers numbers seem (to me) to focus on "pure" runners. The number of part timers would induce a significant change. There would be many more muscle and matrix runners. This is due to a high number of script kiddies on one side and gangs/syndicate members/mercs/criminal security consultants on the other. |
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Dec 28 2007, 02:08 PM
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#34
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Immoral Elf Group: Members Posts: 15,247 Joined: 29-March 02 From: Grimy Pete's Bar & Laundromat Member No.: 2,486 |
The really funny thing is that I made that very typo, noticed it and went back and 'fixed it', making the exact same typo when doing so. :D |
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Dec 28 2007, 04:08 PM
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#35
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 100 Joined: 26-February 02 Member No.: 389 |
This, I think, is the most important thing brought up in a while (besides Mercer's "consistency is most important" bit). The numbers we've been batting around are for full time, non-syndicate, non-corporate Shadowrunners. The PCs may not even fit into this list if they're heavily associated with a single gang, syndicate, corporation, or even have a Day Job. These are not the Bar Bouncers who occasionally rough someone up for some side money. They are not the Talismongers who occasionally provide Astral scouting or overwatch. These are the professional freelance criminals. These are the people for whom their only (or perhaps -most significant-) income is going on Shadowruns for a wide variety of people. Using a broader definition of the term Shadowrunner to include syndicate bully-boys, part-timers, and the like, you might get a "runner" population of several thousand compared to Mercer's earlier 500. That could well be enough to support half a dozen bars catering to them, and a network of fixers and other contacts. These 500 aren't the only ones running the Shadows, they're just the only ones doing it full-time and freelance. |
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Dec 28 2007, 08:13 PM
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#36
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,326 Joined: 15-April 02 Member No.: 2,600 |
I buried that it the OP but that was my idea going in, that the 500 represented the number of working, freelance runners in or around the city. Whether they live in the NAN or have a real job is less of a factor, as long as you can take jobs, you're on the list. All shadowrunners are "part-time" in the sense that they generally only run a few times a month. (That does leave open the door to "semi-professional" shadowrunners, and the SR Pro-Am, but the list is based around addressing the question, Who's hirable?) Without really getting into it, I generally consider the number of Corporate Black Ops and Organized Crime Soldiers (the two main blocks of people that on paper look a lot like shadowrunners) to be comparable to the runner numbers. A Mafia soldier who works solely for his local Don isn't a runner even if he's an archetype Street Sam because fixers and Johnsons can't hire him. That will vary from city to city (A mafia-controlled city might have four times the number of mobsters as shadowrunners, since most "shadow" business is mob controlled), and things like Corporate Black Ops are harder to track because the resources of corporations allow them to pull from all over. Since those groups aren't freelance, they have more of an organization to fall back on. I haven't really thought about how many Fixers Seattle has. I think that would be the next step in really fleshing out the criminal underworld. Off the top of my head, say its 1/10th of the runner population, with 50 Fixers in Seattle-- 25 Inferior, 15 Average, 7 Competent, and 3 Superior or higher. (Assuming that an Inferior fixer is slightly better off than an Inferior runner, as they are management instead of labor, so an Inferior Fixer is still someone who justifies the title "fixer".) My own personal take on scale is that when you get to Sample Contact or Character level, you should be talking about a finite number of people. There's only so many jobs and so many runners, so there's only so much money fixers can make off that. |
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Dec 29 2007, 11:48 AM
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#37
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Awakened Asset Group: Members Posts: 4,464 Joined: 9-April 05 From: AGS, North German League Member No.: 7,309 |
Because of the existance of a running community, extensive number of armed gangs, and strong crime syndicates, a substantial part of the workforce will be in the security sector. If any of those who are willing to do a run and make time for it on short notice are considered runners, the number should be way higher. I do concede that most would only "run" two times a year, but they are there all the time. It was said before, this numbers game is a matter of perception. If all runners to jobs back-to-back, the community would be quite small, and 500 already stretching believe. The most intensive group I´ve been part off only counted on-run days for lifestyle (bad memories...), so 5 runs/month/group would have been well in reach. |
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Dec 29 2007, 12:11 PM
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#38
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Prime Runner Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665 |
This seems exactly backwards to me. Let's consider. There are one and a half million SINless people living in the Seattle Barrens. Of those, fifteen thousand are magicians, and another fifteen thousand are adepts. Now a very good proportion of Adepts are in fact people with a Magic of 1 or 2 and Improved Ability: Gymnastics and a specialization in Dance. Whatever. The number of Adepts in the barrens who have any useful running skills, who someone might pay money to do crime with plausible deniability, that's a pretty small number. But if you're a magician. Maybe you have a Magic of 2 or 3. Maybe you have a Summoning of 1 and have to concentrate really hard to make a Force 3 Spirit show up (as in, you have to try 2 or 3 times to get a net hit and have a service on the damn thing). And seriously, so what? You can summon Force 3 things which have Movement, Guard, and Concealment. Maybe it takes you 10 seconds instead of the second and a half it takes a highly motivated combat mage. So what? You're still "on the team" in any group that aren't jet setting assassins and debutante mercenary celebrities. The talent pool of people who have magical talent and need food is extremely large. Like, there are seriously tens of thousands of people in it. Sure, it might be hard to get a powerful mage (after all, anyone who can reliably summon a Force 5 spirit can pull down six figures from the shipping industry by going legit), but literally every single runner team can get a mage - even if he's addicted to crank and scratches himself a lot. So those numbers are completely backards. The nmber of Magicians at the "inferior" and even "less inferior" levels should be staggeringly titanic - because honestly that is the talent pool that people are selecting from. It's like, what if you were putting together a criminal activities team in Oakland and one team member had to be a good wheel man, one of them had to be a military-grade sniper, and one of them just had to be big and black. Magicians are a pice slice taken not out of the elite criminal mastermind population, but out of the entire population, which means that they outnumber every single other Shadowrunner specialty combined. -Frank |
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Dec 29 2007, 04:25 PM
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#39
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CosaNostra Deliverator Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 346 Joined: 29-January 05 From: Philadelphia, PA Member No.: 7,034 |
There's a big difference between those 15 000 SINless magicians and all the SINless guys who are big and black.
Magical talent is in very high demand since there is a lot of very profitable legitimate work for magicians. Not everyone is going to be a magical researcher or security mage. If one has a Magic of 2 and can cast Fashion, Makeover, Orgasm or Heal, that's a lot of potential earnings, without anyone trying to shoot you back. It's a ticket out of the Barrens for these guys. If you're SINless and magically active, you could probably just walk into an Evo office and say "Hi, I'm SINless but I can cast spells. I'd like a job and a SIN." And after a background check and screening, they'll give you a job in a Evolution body shop doing Healthy Glow spells on rich people. Now the corps are going to miss a lot of these guys. But when word gets around the neighborhood that little Jimmy can cast Trid Phantasm, I'd bet that the criminal syndicate (especially Triads) would take a keen interest. They'd either try to recruit young Jimmy or maybe they would just pass the info a long to a corp headhunter. So I do agree, there's going to be a ton of SINless magically active people. But this pool is going to be greatly cannibalized by corporate and syndicate recruiting, leaving a much smaller shadowrunning pool. A SINless magician has tons of options. A SINless guy who is just big and black, not so much. Respectfully, -JKL |
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Dec 29 2007, 06:32 PM
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#40
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Prime Runner Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665 |
But that's just it. How the hell does little Jimmy pass a backgrond check? Granted, if he can cast one of a long list of industrial and utility spells they won't even care and hire him anyway, but for your average SINless magician, passinga background check is an impossibilty. Because, you know, they're SINless. And anyone freelancing for criminal syndicates is a Shadowrunner, so they should be counted in the numbers.
To paraphrase Biafra, Wall Street and Crack Dealer Avenue are the last roads left to the American Dream. Only one road leads to the Barrens, and little kids want to be major criminals when they grow up. Only in the Shadowrun world, 1% of people are born with the keys to the fucking rocket car and can go down either road until they crash into something. The Barrens puts forth literally thousands of magic using people who commit crime and want to hit it big in the word or crime. Some of these people rise through the ranks of crimnal syndicates and some stay freelancers the whole time, but in either case they are taking Shadow jobs for shadow money and shadow running to make it work. When it comes to moderately to very skilled freelance criminals, the vast majority are magicians. Becuase that's the section of the population which can literally be born with those talents. The oddities are the people who have mundane training, equipment, and cybernetics which stands the equal of even moderate magical prowess. A freelance Street Samurai is a seriously rare dude. There are maybe hundreds of them in the entire sprawl and all of them were created by Corps or Governments and most of them still work for those entities and aren't freelancing. If you have Wired Reflexes and a monofilament sword, you're part of a seriously rare breed. There are maybe a couple dozen people in the entire Sprawl who can do what you do. Bt if you're a mage? Get in line. There are literally thousands of people who want your job. Even if have a Magic of 5 puts you in the 90th percentile, that still means that there are four thousand people in the Seattle Sprawl who can match you at spell slinging. Sure, most of them have real jobs, but you're nothing like an oddity in the world of crime. -Frank |
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Dec 29 2007, 07:40 PM
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#41
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Shadow Cartographer Group: Members Posts: 3,737 Joined: 2-June 06 From: Secret Tunnels under the UK (South West) Member No.: 8,636 |
14/15 posts of yours Frank, I agree with everything you've said and I sit back content that I don't need to post anything myself. But every now and then I find we have a completely opposing view on something. There are a dozen easy ways for the corp to perform a ackground check on "little Jimmy." Given that it's only for practical purposes rather than for any legal requirement, it doesn't have to be legitimate or nice. Methods range from a Compel Truth spell to half an hour with a P-Fix Guilt Chip. ("And when I was eight, I stole a packet of biscuits - I'm so sorry mother!"). And that's only for determing any problems with the mage, not how to deal with them which opens up a whole new range of options. Most violence and theft wont bother them - most personal level violence and theft is a result of environment, something that is about to change a great deal. In trouble with the law? No problem - change of name and relocate to another country. If little Jimmy really does show an inherent tendancy to mayhem, well that's fine too, they'll just push him into the appropriate career path. A mage doesn't need to know a list of industrial and utility spells for a corp to overlook these issues. It's easy enough to enrol a mage on the Ares "So You Want to be a Wage Mage?" training program. The hard part is finding a mage in the first place. Magical capability is a ticket out of the barrens for most that want it. That's going to cut into the number of Shadowrunning mages. Very few people choose a life of violent crime over perceived corporate ease.
For the purposes of this discussion, we are making a distinction between freelancing Shadowrunners and Syndicate members. That's been explicitly stated by several of us. We're only interested in actual Shadowrunners. The thing is, again, for an aspiring criminal, getting in with one of the Syndicates is hitting the big time. You get a lot of benefits compared to just being some hand-to-mouth criminal, respect and belonging probably being the biggest. A good portion of those who don't leave for the corps, will be mopped up by the Syndicates. The difference is that while a megacorp will probably let you go back to the barrens to live out your miserable life if you turn them down (though maybe not if you turn them down for a rival), the Syndicates quite probably wont: I have (for which I am deeply thankful) only ever had a very passing encounter with organised crime, but I do have some idea of how they work. They don't like neutral. Neutral doesn't work for them. You have to establish yourself as pretty tough to get away with impartiality. Otherwise they lean on you. They make interesting comments about your family, They're very "for us or against us." The last thing the Russian Mafia will ever do is say to people "oh we leave that street alone because the guy who lives there told us to back off." Believe me on this. If you're a mundane, even with some cyber, then you may get away with keeping out of the big player's way. But being a magician is a rep in and of itself. The hassle that a samurai gets when he starts building his reputation properly - well a mage already starts out in that position. Mages aren't a complete rarity in the world of crime, but there are real factors working against it that don't apply to samurai or riggers, et al. I think mages who live in the barrens and work the Shadows are doing so because there is some compelling reason for it. Madness, overwhelming emotional ties, a burning hatred that cannot be satisfied in the world of corporate comfort. I play magic as something sinister and still ull of the unknown in my setting so making mages something a little 'other' works quite well. But certainly if they're normal people, there's not much reason for them to be Shadowrunners. |
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Dec 29 2007, 07:57 PM
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#42
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Prime Runner Group: Banned Posts: 3,732 Joined: 1-September 05 From: Prague, Czech Republic Member No.: 7,665 |
I am not saying that there aren't. There are factors that weed out all kinds of people. But remember that the starting pool of magicians is several orders of magnitude larger. To get the kinds of numbers that Mercer is talking about, for every street samurai or cyberninja that factors worked against them working in freelance crime, factors would work against one hundred magicians. And that's just not credible to me. What makes a person with corporate created cybernetics one hundred times more likely to be a freelance criminal than someone with natural genetic magical talent? -Frank |
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Dec 29 2007, 08:01 PM
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#43
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,537 Joined: 27-August 06 From: Albuquerque NM Member No.: 9,234 |
People overestimate how many member there are in organized crime. IIRC, there were 50-70 made men who made up the Chicago "Outfit" in the 90s. They had connections everywhere, but those 50-70 guys WERE the mafia in Chicago and the 5 counties around it. Everyone else involved with the Outfit was a wannabe or an associate at best. And they were from a few hundreds to a thousand.
Of course, SR also has no idea how large a street gang is either. . . . The other thing to realize is that corporations are really conservative in who they hire. If you want an example of this, try putting down a felony arrest on your next job application. People who live in the barrens, like people who live in the ghetto, tend to end up involved in criminal activity and end up with arrest records or drug addictions even if they don't end up dead. Would you hire a graduate from MITT or some gang banger with talent who has a chip on his shoulder the size of a boulder and considers a street gang his family? A good example of the LA gang life, which can be easily extended to the Barrens, is L.A. Gangs: Nine Miles and Spreading. |
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Dec 29 2007, 08:11 PM
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#44
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 3,009 Joined: 25-September 06 From: Paris, France Member No.: 9,466 |
From what I heard, there aren't many people in the mafia itself, but there are a lot of people working, most of them unknowingly, for them.
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Dec 29 2007, 08:18 PM
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#45
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,416 Joined: 4-March 06 From: Albuquerque Member No.: 8,334 |
Of course, therein lies the problem. While there may only be 20 core "mafia" people or whatever, the fact that there are hundreds if not thousands of people working with/for/under them is what makes them an issue.
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Dec 29 2007, 11:08 PM
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#46
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Shadow Cartographer Group: Members Posts: 3,737 Joined: 2-June 06 From: Secret Tunnels under the UK (South West) Member No.: 8,636 |
Heh! I'm not Hyzmarca there, Frank. Must have just been sounding especially knowledgable or something. :D When you say that the starting pool of mages is several orders of magnitude larger [than samurai, I presume], it's a starting point to the debate I don't share. I know you of all people are not someone who throws out phrases without understanding what they're saying, so I'm taking this to say that there are at least a hundred more mages than there are samurai before factors such as corporate recruitment start weeding them out. I've got two issues with that. The first is that given the value of mages and the inability to grow your own like you can samurai, a couple of orders of magnitude might not actually be sufficient to counter the corporate and syndicate recruitment. Even a low-level magician could start their own business creating wards (though someone from the Barrens might lack business and sales ability). But the main issue is the starting pools of potential Shadowrunners. I've come around a little to your point of view as I now see what you're saying (correct me if I've got this wrong). The hundreds of thousands it can cost to become chromed along with the skills required to use it, is rare. Even rarer than the small portion of the population that shows the glimmer of magical potential. I think you're comparing unlike things however. Ghost Who Walks Inside is all wired up and has magnificent skills. Yes - there may be more gutter mages about than there are people like him. But the correct comparison to all those low-power magicians are the poorer, less skilled samurai. We need to have the same standard of what constitutes a Samurai vs. what constitutes some thug with a bit of muscle replacement. I think part of what you're saying is that any magician who chooses to be a Shadowrunner can be a Shadowrunner by virtue of their ability. Whereas a lot of the mundane criminals can never really hope to be considered that or get on a team. There's merit to that, although it can't logically be extended to the situation in which there are more mages than Samurai which is what you proposed. But the financial resource required to be a samurai is not that extreme. Wired reflexes and a smart link would be a must and perhaps some attribute boosts, which can be had for, what? Around thirty-thousand? It's out of the reach of most of your honest barrens inhabitants, but it's not much by other people's standards.There are plenty of sources for samurai to enter the shadows from. Ex-army, ex-security, organised crime, drug dealing, theft, corp funded. And we can knock the cost down further with second hand ware. My point is that there are a lot of good sources for Samurai to come from, combined with a lack of interest on the part of big players like the corps who can produce them to order (ish). But there's only one source for mages and it's the rare happenstance of chance. There's also one final issue counting against finding a high proportion of runners being magicians and it's this. If you accept that Shadowrunners are Shadowrunners due to either serious psychological issues or desparate circumstance (and that's a fair assumption given that most people with the skills to be a Shadowrunner could make a better and safer living doing something else), then we find that ability is not the driving factor in becoming one. And in that case, it follows that of those that need to become a Shadowrunner, many will be able to go out and get fitted with some ware, pick up a Predator and learn to shoot, but few, few of them will be able to go out and become spellslingers. Becoming a samurai or whatever is the only option for most people driven to those lengths. Therefore of most people driven to those lengths, that's what they'll be. Not mages. I see what you're saying (I think), and I'm partially persuaded, but I don't give your points, though their valid, the same weight that you do. Correct me if I've misunderstood your post. -K. |
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Dec 29 2007, 11:10 PM
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#47
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Shadow Cartographer Group: Members Posts: 3,737 Joined: 2-June 06 From: Secret Tunnels under the UK (South West) Member No.: 8,636 |
50-70 hardened criminals with zero respect for the law sounds pretty dangerous to me! |
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Dec 29 2007, 11:31 PM
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#48
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,537 Joined: 27-August 06 From: Albuquerque NM Member No.: 9,234 |
No professional criminal (and the few hundreds to a thousand are all one man crime waves - crime is what they do every day) has anything other then professional respect for the law.
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Dec 30 2007, 12:54 AM
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#49
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Shadow Cartographer Group: Members Posts: 3,737 Joined: 2-June 06 From: Secret Tunnels under the UK (South West) Member No.: 8,636 |
Disagree. Contempt is more like it, contempt and an over-compensating dismissal of any of the threats the law can bring. But when I said respect, I meant the sort of conditioned fear of punishment or judgement that most people have in the West. The ability to enforce the law is not what keeps people from breaking it. It is the fear of the law that keeps people from breaking it. At least in those situations where they would otherwise behave differently. That may seem like a trivial statement or two ways of saying the same thing, but in fact it is not. The effect of fear of the law on people's behaviour is out of all proportion to a government's ability to enforce that law. I remember an interview with a senior police officer on the radio here in the UK in which he said (and I think I've still got the words right): "The law isn't to stop bad people from being bad. It's to stop good people from being bad." In other words, it doesn't do much to discourage real criminals, but it keeps the better behaved people better behaved. A person who lacks that fear of the law can get away with a lot. Were that lack of "respect" more common, then you would see how little actual grip law enforcement has on a country. If you get seventy people organising together who lack that fear of the law, that "respect" then they can do a lot. |
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Dec 30 2007, 01:38 AM
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#50
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,537 Joined: 27-August 06 From: Albuquerque NM Member No.: 9,234 |
And that's why the crime problem in England is out of control. What I mean is that that they ignore the law in their daily operation, but they don't ignore the police. They try to understand how the cops work and act. Who can be paid off and who can't, and who can be scared off and who can't. Who they can use to get info on what the cops are doing, and how they can plant agents in the police. They use this to avoid being caught. If caught they will hire people who can use the law to let them walk or people who can apply pressure to the people who can let them walk. People who have total contempt for the cops may make a living from crime, but they will not be "professional" criminals. They will spend, as do gangbangers and many thugs, a large proportion of their life inside. Made men normally didn't. They probably spent time in jail or short stretch in prison, but it's not a rotating door they keep walking through. Some of them are only suspected of being criminals, though that seems pretty rare. |
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Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 26th September 2025 - 03:26 PM |
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