Imagine we're in the days of the first few Habitats. I wouldn't
foresee the need to build jails or prisons when no criminals yet
exist. Then one day a rape or murder happens, or some other crime.
Assuming the accused is tried under local law, what shall we do with
the criminal if found guilty. House arrest? Convert a broom closet?
Who do we designate to be his guard and cook food for him?

Should we ship him back to Earth? How much would that cost? Would
people go for letting him go scott free by shipping him back to
Earth?

Any thoughts?

TangoMan

My guess is that things would err on the side of rough.

Improvised manacles until sentence is pronounced, and for rape or murder
I wouldn't be surprised if the sentence involves sitting on the wrong
side of an airlock without a suit -- especially if there has been no
preparation in advance for such unpleasantness.

SL

That would be dependent on how bad Earth is by that time. However, humans
being, well, human, makes them subordinate to, well, human nature, and thus
some bad things are bound to happen. I would guess that a jail of some type
and the attendant peace officers will be part of any habitat design, if for
nothing else but the odd disorderly drunk.

Val

--- In ssi_list@... "victoriatangoman"
> Imagine we're in the days of the first few Habitats. I wouldn't
> foresee the need to build jails or prisons when no criminals yet
> exist. Then one day a rape or murder happens, or some other crime.
> Assuming the accused is tried under local law, what shall we do
with
> the criminal if found guilty. House arrest? Convert a broom closet?
> Who do we designate to be his guard and cook food for him?
>
> Should we ship him back to Earth? How much would that cost? Would
> people go for letting him go scott free by shipping him back to
> Earth?
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> Tangoman

Greetings,

A little bit of de ja vu, I just posted this same message to the
Space Settler group but since the same thread is going there, the
message is just as valid, so for anybody who isn't in both groups ;-)

Just a couple of thoughts, I live in Canberra Australia, population
300,000 and we do not have a local prison, there are six police
stations, each with limited facilities for temporary holding, after
that there is a couple of holding cells at the courts and a remand
centre, again for temporary holding while the fate of the occupants
is decided, capacity about 60 or so (I think, not sure of the exact
number but not very large). Anybody who is sentenced to real time
(more than, say 30 days) is sent to the prison in New South Wales, an
interstate transfer, the local government has an agreement with the
N.S.W state government for the holding of prisoners and pays for them
to held. You may have to transfer prisoners to a place on Earth for
holding, of course if that is too expensive then you would have to
have a local prison.

If you are looking for a model for how a small population looks after
the local crime problem you only have to go back in history a bit and
look at how small towns or isolated communities did it, what did a
town in the American west do with its prisons, how did it deal with
malcontents, what about isolated communities? A lot will depend on
what the legal status of the habitat is, are they a self governing
entity or are they just an isolated town of a larger state?

Canberra is in the Australian Capital Territory and is a self
governing area without the rights of statehood, this means that the
Federal Government has the power to override our laws and decisions
if they want (so much for self government, of course the first
habitats may have the same kind of self government). 300,000 is a
fair size for a habitat but not impossible, even when we were much
smaller we still had a crime issues and a need for prisons and we
solved it by shipping prisoners interstate, habitats could do the
same thing or they could band together to share hold facilities, in
fact it should be pretty easy for them, consider all they need is a
smaller habitat or station (two drums connected by a long wire would
work) that has to be supplied from the outside and isolated from
everybody else would make a good prison, with low enough cost to
orbit, you could even make a case for that being a for profit
industry, it gets the offender away from the society that sentenced
them and puts them where it is hard to escape from. I personally
don't like the idea of being somebody's gaoler but it is a growth
industry in some parts of the world and just a couple of centuries
ago, it helped build this country.

As I once stated at AAS before they shut down:

The Australians can be glad they got the convicts, while America got
stuck with the Puritans!

No one from either nation ever disputed me on this.

--- In ssi_list@... "Xenophile"
> As I once stated at AAS before they shut down:
>
> The Australians can be glad they got the convicts, while America
got
> stuck with the Puritans!
>
> No one from either nation ever disputed me on this.

LOL!

TangoMan

--- In ssi_list@... "Xenophile"
> As I once stated at AAS before they shut down:
>
> The Australians can be glad they got the convicts, while America
got
> stuck with the Puritans!
>
> No one from either nation ever disputed me on this.

Hi,

Sorry to take so long to reply but I've been having a few problems
of late, I've been reading the mail but unable to reply, but Problem
solved and am back on line.

Americans got the moralists wowsers, sorry, Puritans and we got the
legally creative, sorry, criminals and we got the better deal?
Absolutely no argument from me, no disrespect to the Americans on
the list (I assume that they are either the majority or the largest
single group) but we got the better end of that split.

This tread started by wondering what to do with those that need to
have a little social readjustment when you don't have a gaol or
police. So let us look at this in a logical way for a moment (well
from my logic).

I don't think that any grouping that is not a military or para-
military group and consists of more than a handful of people, will
not have some kind of law enforcement. The job of "sheriff", may
fall to the team leader or more likely be performed by a trained
person who is either full time security or if there is not a need
for a full time policeman then will perform this duty together with
some other job and have the power to call on others to back him/her
up if needed.

My day job is in fact law enforcement related and while what I do
has little or no resemblance to the kind of situation that
a "constable" in a habitat will find themselves in, I like to kid
myself that I have some kind of understanding of what it would be
like. And I keep coming back to a copper in a small, remote town.
Every constable (here in Australia at lest) has discretion when
enforcing the law, that is they can arrest or not arrest depending
on the case. In a habitat the police would need the same kind of
discretion, sometimes you would need to tell the offender to smarten
up or else and others you would need to lock them up.

With any serious crime, you would need to lock up the offender or
accused, in some cases it may be needed to protect them. But once
the police have decided to charge a person, that's were their part
ends (other than making sure they stay were they are) and the courts
and prosecutors starts, this division of labour is important, you
don't want the police to investigate and prosecute. When both jobs
belong to a single person or a single small group, it's far too easy
to "find" the needed evidence and make sure the "guilty" get what's
coming to them. This kind of thing is much harder if you have to
justify each bit of evidence and how you got it. You defiantly want
to separate those jobs. Then the third part of the legal machinery
starts, the judge and maybe the jury. Again you want the job of
judge to be separate from the first two parts, they can all work
with each other but justice is better served when they are three
separate things.

All this is expensive and a small community will find it hard to
afford so all three parts may be part time jobs and things can work
this way.

Now to really put my foot in it, my own picture of how things might
work out.

The local police is three full time and seven part time members of
the five hundred strong community, they deal with the normal day to
day problems, a local Justice of the Peace (JP) handles any small
scale legal problems, handing out fines and sentencing offenders to
community service in minor cases where the offender agrees to a
quick local trial with no jury and a maximum sentence of 30 days
community service. Crimes that have the potential for more than that
or of a serious nature gets the JP to arrange for a full team to be
drafted from the local community or more likely and fairer, a
professional team from home or maybe from another habitat (the cost
of law enforcement could be shared among a group of habitats). If
the person is found guilty then they are sent to a local gaol
(sorry, jail, if you're an American and spell funny) or a shared
facility ( note facility not gaol, I decided to take pity on any US
readers ;-) that is used by a number of habitats, the other options
is to ship them back to Earth or to build a one, this may be easier
than it seems.

A lot of this is dependent on exactly what kind of legal framework
the habitat/s are operating under. Are they just a remote base,
under the laws of a home country or are they independent nation
states. It may seem strange to talk about a nation state with just a
few hundred people but consider Vatican City. A lot of people argue
that a company that has invested a huge amount in building a habitat
isn't about to let it become an independent nation and lose it's
investment. The thing is, there could be any number of reasons why
the investors might want the habitat to be independent.

Consider, a habitat decides to change flags or even to go its own
way, what happens.
The model that most people would apply to a habitat would be a ship
at sea but ships sail under national flags and habitats wouldn't
need to do that. Interesting problem. It could prove interesting to
see how things work out if a powerful nation back on Earth decided
that its laws were the ones that to be enforced in a habitat or even
all habitats and they disagreed.

Bottom line, it won't be if a crime is committed but when and it
could become a very interesting time.

Darren Brown