Death penalty, Did the UCAS stick to that? Options

[Iota]

Hey all!

Was wondering whether the UCAS still has the death penalty, since the Canadians never liked that a lot.

Anyone knowing something?

[Kerberos]

Hey all!

Was wondering whether the UCAS still has the death penalty, since the Canadians never liked that a lot.

Anyone knowing something?

I'm guessing they still have it. Opposition to the death penalty is usually motivated by touchy feely stuff such as concern that innocents may be mistakenly convicted, or that the government shouldn't kill. Shadowrun is seldom touchy feely.

[Sir_Psycho]

The world was a whole lot scarier. I imagine you could easily convert the canadian states into a culture of fear, with metahumans and the awakening and the like. So the death penalty would be easy enough to push through.

[CanRay]

It would probably depend on the State/Province, just like it does IRL. The harsher places would have it for sure, whereas the more Touchy-Feely (Political-wise at least) would just lock you up for life.

Hey! Look at that! AA+ Corporations own the prisons, and, thus, the prisoners! And, if you're away for life, they can do whatever they want to you.

Test subjects in a fate worse than death, anyone?

[Sir_Psycho]

And who cares if you take that triple-murder pedophile and graft animal parts onto him in the name of science? I imagine the sickest of the sick work in prison research labs.

[hyzmarca]

I imagine that they don't have it because of corporate influence. Why kill (and cremate, and shedim) when you can pay hundreds of nuyen per day to have someone else stuff him in a coffin for the rest of his life?

The death penalty is behind the times now, not because it is too cruel or brutal but because living in prison is substantially crueler and more brutal. In 2070, this is even more true. Punishment-oriented penal systems will prefer imprisonment to Death in all cases. After all, you can kill someone only once but Bubba the Love Troll is the gift that keeps on giving. And Bubba always gives; he never receives. That Bubba, he's such a generous giver - And he has alot to give, too.
It is even better when the prisoner is really in a 6'x1'x'1 drawer with a robot flipper that turns him twice a day and IV nutrition while he is receiving the daily gift of Bubba in a VR cell without any clue that his experience isn't real. It is also substantially more cost efficient.

A rehabilitation-oriented penal system won't have prisons at all and won't have the Death Penalty either. In modern rehabilitation-oriented systems, the Death Penalty is justified (moreso than in punishment-oriented systems) by the lack of effective brainwashing techniques such that the most violent and incorrigible persons can be rendered docile and productive citizens. It is simply more efficient to kill those who can't be rehabilitated. In 2070, rehabilitators have Personafixes, Psycotropic attack programs, and even PDB Units to assist them. With relatively little effort, they can reshape a convict's mind into something far more suitable to their purposes.

Given that prisons make substantially more money per convict than brainwashing clinics would, I imagine that rehabilitation would be preferred by Megacorps (there is no profit in paying to imprison someone) while prison would be preferred by governments (because there is much profit in accepting kickbacks from prisons).

[CanRay]

Ah, good ol' Bubba the Love Troll.

[Sir_Psycho]

The whole chain-gang thing would come back big-time. Why kill a crim when you can personafix him and send him to your Glow-City/SOX/Arctic facility as a (chip-skilled) labourer?

I wouldn't be surprised if the death penalty was used for high profile cases. Especially when the public is crying for blood and justice. Mayan Cutter, perhaps?

[CanRay]

Actually, my first attempt at running Shadowrun ended up with one of the PCs being captured by Lone Star.

They Personafixed him so that he loved being a Call Centre Worker.

The Player BURNED the character sheet. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/vegm.gif)

[jklst14]

I don't have my copy with me but if I recall correctly, the Neo-Anarchists Guide to North America confirms that the UCAS has the death penalty.

[Iota]

Well in Runner Havens (page 87) it says that the Vory do quite a business in and out of the prisons around Seattle, though these are called "the Hollywood Correctional Facility and Silcox Island Correctional Facility".

This "correctional facility" thing lets me think that hyzmarca might be right on that brainwashing thing. But I would assume that there are still normal prisons for the smaller crimes like theft and so on, because to my mind it would be too much brainwashing someone who stole a car.

[CanRay]

...because to my mind it would be too much brainwashing someone who stole a car.

Well, you've obviously never been to Winnipeg recently. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

"Attempting to steal this car will result in a severe beating" bumper stickers are very common after one would-be car thief tried it, and got pummled by a bunch of random people.

[Jackstand]

I don't have my copy with me but if I recall correctly, the Neo-Anarchists Guide to North America confirms that the UCAS has the death penalty.

The federal government probably does, but, on the other hand, it could have changed, since most of the capital punishment states are in the CAS, NAN and so forth. Still, it might be a part of the UCAS constitution that the federal government has that power, in order to make it harder to remove it with their influx of no-kill Canadian states. This is, of course, assuming that the UCAS government functions essentially the same as the US.

[Wesley Street]

In a world of Urban Brawl and Combat Biking? Yeah, I'm sure it's safe to assume the death penalty still exists. I've always felt the "C" in UCAS was a bit misleading. There's very little that's Canadian about the UCAS government.

[CanRay]

Well, as I explained to my group, pretty much the only things that stayed from Canada was the loosening of Marijuana Laws and the allowability of Same-Sex Marriage.

And the law that allowed Canucks to be elected President was the Loophole that allowed the Presidential Dragon! An important thing!

[Wesley Street]

I could see all of that happening in the USA within the next 70 years. Except the Dragon thing. That would be too crazy. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Jackstand]

Well, we'll just have to see what the winter of '11-'12 brings us.

[Wesley Street]

I make it a rule not to trust the doomsday calendars of cultures that couldn't even predict their own demise.

[Ravor]

Don't assume that they didn't. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif)