[suggestion] Death row/Parole/Sentencing Design

[rwurgley]

I agree fully that we should not be able to send someone to execution chamber as a punishment we the player can choose. However, I really do think that the execution chamber though does need to be an option for the sandbox mode. After reading a lot of different forum posts and commentaries on the subject, here is what I propose. It’s a mix of numerous ideas of others out there while trying to adhere to desires of the developers not to just allow players to punish with death, etc. Also, everyone feel free to poke holes into the design, or make alternate suggestions.

When it comes to “death row” cells and the execution chamber, we as the player can choose whether to even enable our participation in the options menu. Without it enabled, the execution chamber, and proposed death row room will not be enabled. If enabled, we can open the incoming prisoners to accept a new type of prisoner for death row inmates, like we do now for max security, and such. I'd think they'd come pretty rare, even when open for this type prisoner, whereas most days you will not receive a death row inmate. This allows the player to have the death penalty dynamic in the game if they choose to, while not allowing the player to control who to sentence to death penalty.

Ultimately, it would be good to have a parole room or court room added into the game as well, to determine early release, or increased sentencing, but in the meantime, that can be handled off screen. Every day, inmates that reach a non-player configurable threshold for crimes in the prison, are transported off-screen for their hearing. In the back-end, the game can use an algorithm with some randomness in it to determine if a prisoner should get an extended sentence, or “life in prison”, or even the death penalty if that’s enabled in the options. The amount of prisoners going out of the prison would need to be limited each day to say 8 for every 50 prisoners (the number that fits into one truck),, so as to not cripple any work programs in the prison with a potential flood of people leaving for court. Like those going to solitary or medical, it would just queue up those that need to leave, so over time everyone goes as needed.

The next morning, the prisoners who went off screen, would return to the prison by truck as if they were new inmates. These prisoners would always come back to the prison no matter if you are set for open or closed, since they were already your prisoners. If the player has death penalty enabled in the options, and a prisoner is sentenced to come back as death row, there can be a check on if those rooms are built yet. If the player does not yet have those rooms, the prisoner would be “transferred” to another prison and not come back to the prison instead. So the player isn’t forced into a situation where he needs to spend a lot on facilities all of the sudden cause a prisoner came back as a death row inmate. This will prevent earlier prisons from being forced to build the facilities earlier than they really can.

Another aspect to the parole/court system is having a set number of years a prisoner needs to server before being up for parole. They would transport off-screen as well when its time, and have a chance of being released, instead of coming back to your prison the next morning. It could also be extended to have a % chance of they have to serve out their sentence further, but they are no longer considered maximum security and come back as medium security, or a medium comes back as a maximum due to the new sentence that the off-screen parole/court system determines.

As part of the increased sentencing, there are would be an option for life in prison. It would require that the game incorporate death by natural causes to the game. All prisoners can have this happen really. The chance would be greater as the inmate gets older in prison. The death wouldn't count towards the player as a penalty, but it allows for prisoners to actually die naturally, and also for the life in prison sentence to function.

Overall, I really think these things being implemented into the game would really add a good dynamic to the prison, while keeping the developers desires to restrict players from being able to hand out sentencing. The offsite handling of this will allow the developers to wait on adding in extra rooms, and a judge or parole board, which would make it really make the design great, but we’ll still get the gameplay without having those rooms.

[Bubbie]

I like this suggestion. +1

[Kezarus]

There is a planed room like a Court, then most of what you sugested as "off-screen" will happen inside the prison itself.

In the bottom of each prisoner file there is a gauge with colors red and blue. Blue means the time the prisoner can get parole. It doesn't work yet, but it's planed.

Death row inmates (black uniform?) will be a great addition!

Death by old age must be included. I post a suggestion feature on Mantis only for this. http://bugs.introversion.co.uk/view.php?id=5051

But great ideas. +1

[christopher1006]

I think to keep in line with player choice and the fact that this is a business, death row should be portrayed as part of the grant system. For example, the first contract would be to construct the facility and one death row cell as a "trial run". After having your first execution, new grants would open up with bigger payouts for the longer you agree to do the executions, example being that you must execute 20 prisoners within the next 15 years and the government will pay you $10,000 per success with a $50,000 completion bonus. At any time, you can choose to opt out of the execution system. If you are still completing a grant then you must pay a penalty fee and you won't be offered any of those grants for the next 5 years. All of the death row inmates will also be transferred out at your expense using your own guards to transport them for 1-2 days.

The parole system is already in game, there just isn't an approvals section. I believe it was also mentioned earlier that you (as the "Architect") will get to approve or deny parole, possibly with a parole board to help you organize information about the inmate in question. The court system has been suggested but I haven't seen it confirmed, this would be logical to add as inmates do commit crimes at prison so if it's above the jurisdiction of the Warden then you would need to ship them off for their court dates. Conversely, perhaps we will be allowed to build a court at the prison via a land grant for the government and be allowed to get weekly pay for the amount of prisoners that go through it though we will have to assign guards to that duty to help out.

Sentencing from crimes committed in in the prison shouldn't be random. A prisoner will never be executed for stealing a pack of cigarettes, no matter how much your guard payed for them. This opens up the opportunity for investigations or if not then at least a use for the lawyer where you can tell him to try to extend, reduce or keep the sentence of the prisoner.