Law
See also: Judge (2000 AD)Mega-City One's laws are harsh, with many crimes not found in present-day law. Possession of sugar, for example, is illegal, as is the smoking of tobacco outside of licensed Smokatoriums, and coffee is banned as an illegal stimulant. The laws are enforced by the Judges, who are a combination of judge and police officer. Ordinary laws are enforced more harshly than the present day, reflecting the crime rate. Judges impose immediate sentences on the spot, usually lengthy sentences of imprisonment (or "encubement"). In extreme cases even the death penalty may be imposed, although relatively sparingly compared with the present day. In contrast many criminals are shot to death while resisting arrest, and resisters who survive Judge assault often receive a whole-life cube term.
The Judges themselves are not exempt from the law; they are expected to obey it more strictly than any other. A violation that would earn a citizen a few months in an Iso-Cube would get a Judge a twenty-year sentence, served as hard labor on Saturn's moon, Titan, after surgical modification to enable the convict to survive outside there without needing an expensive space suit.
Most ordinary citizens are sent to the Iso-Cubes, tiny cells located within huge prisons. These are designed for maximum rehabilitation in the shortest time possible, but ultimately the decision as to sentence rests with the judges. Sentences are usually very long. However, the death penalty is not in wide use, and is reserved for mass murder or endangering the security of the city. In spite of this judges do regularly shoot perps dead in the course of combat.
Firearm possession is only legal with the right firearms permit, which is very hard to obtain, the only real exception is in the cases of the Citidef units who may use heavy weapons (Though since Block Mania the security on these is extreme and they are only issued in wartime). However, in spite of this many firearms are in circulation, some sold on the black market while others are leftovers from the various invasions that have occurred over the past thirty years. Some families still possess twentieth-century handguns that have been handed down through the years. These are sometimes found by crime blitzes and will usually earn exactly the same penalty as a "modern" day lasblaster.
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Famous quotes containing the word law:
“All things are literally better, lovelier, and more beloved for the imperfections which have been divinely appointed, that the law of human life may be Effort, and the law of human judgment, Mercy.”
—John Ruskin (1819–1900)
“The law before us, my lords, seems to be the effect of that practice of which it is intended likewise to be the cause, and to be dictated by the liquor of which it so effectually promotes the use; for surely it never before was conceived by any man entrusted with the administration of public affairs, to raise taxes by the destruction of the people.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“Law without education is a dead letter. With education the needed law follows without effort and, of course, with power to execute itself; indeed, it seems to execute itself.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)