) at it.
Here are my ideas for a way this could work and be an interesting game mechanic. Some of it may be very intuitive and self-evident, but I think that as a whole this could work.
Gang structure
There would obviously need to be a variety of gangs. For realism purpose I would prefer that each race was treated as a gang, with those (race) gangs having different sub-gangs ("sets"). Overall gangs would (read:could) be organized into: Black, white, latino and 'other'. Those would have gangs within them fx 'Crips' and 'Bloods' for blacks; 'AB' and 'Nazi Lowriders' for whites; 'Mexican Mafia' and 'La Nuestra Familia' for hispanics etc.. If using real names is to politically explosive, of course fictional names could be made up. (But it would be cool with real names imo). Every gang has 1 leader and a number of shotcallers depending of the size of the gang (say 1 shotcaller to every 10 members). When a member of statute is released or killed, after some time another member is promoted. The player will not know (initially) who are leaders or shotcallers.
Gang interaction
Different gangs have different standings with other gangs which changes, ideally depending on past incidents. This happens with race-gangs as well as sub-gangs. Race-gangs can be neutral, allied or at war with other race-gangs, and sub-gangs can be neutral, allied or at war with other sub-gangs even from their own race-gang. If a gang member encounters another gang member that his gang is at war with, he will attack that individual if there are no guards close by. Nearby gang members will aid in fights if they are allied with either side. Race gangs will override sub-gangs such that, gang members will attack or aid based on race-gang first, and sub-gang second. So if an individual is attacked by someone from another race-gang, an individual might aid a person from the same race, even if their sub-gangs might be at war with each other. That way you can have regular gang fights and all out race wars. The situation can be especially explosive in riots within mixed cell blocks.
Gang recruitment
A gang will have a chance of recruiting new members from the population (that are not already in a gang) in a given cell block/sector. The chance of recruitment depends on the gangs dominance in the sector. The gang which has the most members in a sector (e.g. a gen. pop. prison block) will in general have a bigger chance of recruiting than other gangs present in the sector. The gang needs to have at least one shotcaller in the sector to actively recruit (several present shot callers might multiply the effect), and if the leader is present in the sector the chance of recruitment will be even higher.
Gang identification
When prisoners first arrive at the prison you do not know what gang they are in (if any). As gang members are usually kept seperate with less privileges, they will pretend to not be gang bangers. At this point you will not know a persons gang affiliations before they are involved in a violent crime within the jail, at which time their gang affiliations have a chance of being revealed to you (because your CO's figure it out). Like many real prisons you can have a 'Gang Classification Unit' by hiring a Gang Classification Officer (he needs an office). When a "GCO" is employed he will try to uncover gang affiliations within the prison. When prisoners arrive, the GCO will try to figure out if they have gang affiliations (checking their rap-sheets, tats etc.). He has a certain chance of detecting their gang affiliation right away, but they might very well slip through the net, and start to cause trouble in gen. pop. With a GCO on staff the chance of discovering gang affiliation when a member is involved in a violent crime is much higher. With a GCO on staff, gang members will also be able to defect from gangs. If they do so they will reveal the leader and shotcallers in their sub-gang (the player can then isolate these). Drop-outs will of course be "green-lit" by gang members, and any gang member will then attack them if they are able to (snitches get stitches). Drop-outs should therefor be placed in Protective Custody / The Sensitive Needs Yard. Dead snitches should give a penalty, and decrease the chance of other gang members defecting.
Housing
Gangs members will be housed in different cell blocks/sectors if possible, but the influx of new prisoners will mean that some gang members will inevitably and continously get through to gen. pop., so your GCO needs to keep working to detect gang members. When gang members are detected they will be moved to a SHU (Secure Housing Unit), that is designated for members of that gang only. Ideally uniform colours can be specified on different criteria such that different gangs wear different colour uniforms, and ordinary inmates and those with sensitive needs (i.e. snitches) have their own colour too.
The bigger point
Gang members in gen. pop. will cause the ordinary (non-violent) prisoners to feel unsafe and be unhappy. Gang presence will also breed (by gangs recruiting), and the problem will thus become continously worse if not kept in check. This will result in more violent and general crime and in a higher chance of riots in the sector. Gang members would also generally be more violent, requiring a lot more staff in gang-specific Housing Units. So while the bulk of your officers are trying to keep gang-units under control, gen. pop. might see increasing gang activity that threatens regular prisoners.
Afterthoughts
These are my initial ideas for a gang-system that makes for an (imo) fun game mechanic that actually has an impact other than just locking people up in different buildings. With this approach you would have to stay on top of the gang situation to avoid a gang infested prison with gang bangers terrorizing the general population, making regular prisoners unruly and unhappy. You could also suddently have problems if two gangs you have housed together because they were neutral or allied suddently become enemies, and you have a serious housing crisis. You might be forced to have a heavy staff presence to curb gang violence within the sector (while making other housing arrangements), leaving other sectors less well guarded.
What do you guys think?
Am I on to something? Has all of this been discussed somewhere else? Any thoughts on improving the idea?
BTW: Sorry for bad spelling and language. English is not my native language, and I'm writting this kinda late at night.
Regards,
that'd be kinda cool.
)
