Hondo City - Law

Law

Like most cities in Judge Dredd, Hondo is run under a Judge system, with the Judge-Inspectors acting as government, police and judge, jury and executioner to preserve order. The Hondo Judge-Inspectors are highly disciplined and well-armed, and are similar in mindset and culture to ancient samurai. Their uniforms have bio-circuitry links allowing them to use their tendo stave weapons (a form of bludgeon) and laser-shuriken discs as extensions of their own bodies. In following their samurai leanings, energy-based sabers, futuristic nunchucks and traditional katanas are also used. Unlike foreign Judges, they wear no badge with their name on; their names are printed on the rising sun symbol on their uniforms, viewable only through the visor on another Judge's helmet, with the intent that the citizens see justice as one entity rather than a group of individuals. Originally they piloted high-speed Japanese versions of Mega-City One's Lawmaster cycles, but they have recently upgraded to hovercycles.

Despite their high discipline, the Judge-Inspectors have the freedom to conduct sexual relationships unlike their American counterparts, and the law in Hondo seems slightly less harsh. There is a judicially-sanctioned "pleasure quarter" in Tokyo District called Yoshiwara, with the intent of containing and controlling the sex industries.

The Justice Department suffers from infiltration by elements of the yakuza societies, leading to corruption and inefficiency - nearly every District House in Hondo has a yakuza Judge in its command strata. The yakuza societies and many elements within the judiciary view each other as a necessary evil in order to maintain a balance in Hondo. It also took until 2113 for the first female Judge-Inspector, Aiko Inaba, to go on duty and there are extremely few other women in that job; there was heavy institutional pressure to have her flunked as a Cadet.

The high technological level of Hondo came in extremely useful during the crisis of Judgement Day. Hondo's Skreemers - powerful sonic cannons - were able to vapourise Sabbat's zombies before they could enter Hondo, and this level of security made it ideal as the centre of a global meeting on how to handle the crisis. The global team of Judges sent in to bring down Sabbat wore heavily-armoured Samurai battle-armour, cutting a swathe through the undead.

The Justice Department of Hondo has a permanent military presence around the Web, the network of Borneo & the Indonesian islands linked by giant mutant coral growths, in order to deal with the threat of the coral mutation and to contain the highly prosperous levels of crime within the Web. The Web was not able to finance a Judge system (seemingly being cut loose from Indonesia, which had a Mega-City in Djakarta) due to the crippling costs it took to battle the coral - namely paying Hondo a crippling sum to have techno-wizard Masamune Taoka find a way of containing the coral, and the pressure of being forced to take a large number of Hondo's undesirables in return for their services.