User:Lonesoldier55/sandbox

The ultimate role of Security is to protect the crew and the station itself against threats internal and external (even though the crew is most often the larger of these two threats). Space Law exists to try and bring order and proteciton to the entire crew, so your actions to that end should reflect that. If you do something in good faith with intent to protect the crew (this includes the arrested!), odds are you have made a good choice given the situation.

Above all, Space Law is a guideline, not a rule. Use your best judgement when deciding the course of action to take in a situation as you are not required to follow the law to the letter. Remember that the crew you detain or arrest are players too, and its no fun to throw those players in the permabrig all game for a comparatively minor offense.

Enforcing Space Law

Enforcing the law is, loosely put, stopping the crew from doing illegal things. In general the biggest thing you need to look out for are things like contraband, illicit access, and obviously, physical harm and murder. Offenders must be subdued and brigged where possible, but ultimately your duty is to protect the crew and the innocent.

Security has the difficult task of trying to quickly assess a situation and make the best possible choice with usually little to no information. Breaking up a fight, for example, usually results in one person arrested, who claims they were in the right, and the other person running away scott free. Make your best possible judgement with what you have and try to use less-forceful options where it may be applicable.

Sentencing Guidelines

These are very rough guidelines for sentencing to give you a feel of where certain types of crimes fall in terms of severity. Always remember you have discretion to increase or decrease sentencing based on the crime and circumstances around it, or to adjust it based on their behavior during arrest.

Sentencing Guidelines

Brig Time	Duration	Description
None	Release after search	For very minor crimes that do not typically require waiting in the brig as the initial detaining and search usually warrants enough of an interruption.
Minor	1-3 Minutes	Minor crimes like petit theft or minor vandalism and especially for repeat offenders of similar and lower crimes.
Moderate	3-6 Minutes	Most average crimes like theft, aggravated battery, or trespassing in secure areas, depending on the circumstance. May also be used for repeat offenders of lower crimes.
Major	6-10 Minutes	For most serious crimes (like homicide) that do not elevate to a Permabrigging and for major repeat offenders of lesser crimes, or repeat offenders in the moderate crimes category.
Demotion	Release after ID Change	Generally, demoting someone is done if they cannot be trusted with their current job assignment given the circumstances. This could be applicable to Heads of Staff who are genuinely terrible, or chemists who are only making meth and explosives as usually these two people will cause more damage then they prevent when released back to their job. Lawyers that cannot be trusted to steal everything in the brig are also a good candidate for demotion. Keep the demotee detained in the brig until you can get their ID sorted; dragging them around in the halls to the Head of Personnel's line yourself is asking for trouble.
Permabrig	Until Release	If you think releasing someone from the brig is probably much more danger to the crew then not, you can probably justify permabrigging them if you have proper reasoning and evidence to back it up. Releasing someone from permabrig can be easily done, so remember to offer that to the permabrigged if they behave as it may more positively earn their cooperation. It is also much easier to recover from a bad permabrigging decision then it is to recover from a bad execution decision, so use this when you aren't sure between the two.
Execution	Quick and Painful	For only the worst offenders who cannot be contained in the permabrig or are a major threat to the station as a whole and where keeping them in permabrig probably wouldn't end well. You should absolutely get approval for executions with your Head of Security and the Captain where possible as nothing paints security in a worse light then the crew hearing about how they are freely murdering the innocent inside the brig. Use extreme caution as executions are usually much less preferable to permabrig if you can help it.

Remember: circumstance is important in your assessment of sentencing. Someone who is cooperative, apologetic, or was committing the crime to genuinely help someone or the station can probably be left off easier or given amnesty entirely. Someone who is lying, intensely uncooperative, threatening to kill or bomb all of security, or threatening to call the admins you can probably let stew a little longer in the cell.

For repeat offenders who you have arrested previously, consider the situation and generally run them a harder sentence to discourage them from re-offending. Use your best judgement and consider the crime being committed. Someone with two or three minor thefts is still probably only moderate brig time, but someone with two or three aggravated batteries or attempted homicides should probably be permabrigged.

Below is a very generalized list of types of crimes you may run into and the elements of them as well as a rough sentence guideline. The elements of a crime are what need to be met to be guilty of it. Remember that it is poor form to brig someone just because you "think" they committed a crime; you should have very good reason to believe they did or have personally witnessed it, and intent is usually key. If the crime looks like it could be accidental, consider if an arrest is appropriate.

Crimes

Caption text

Crime	Elements	Brig Suggestion	Notes
Trespassing	Being in a secured area without permission or authorization from appropriate authority which oversees that area.	None to Minor	Check with the Head of Personnel to make sure they did not assign access without notifying anyone. A search of the detained is appropriate if they are suspected of stealing anything. Verify the accesses on the suspect's ID.
Trespassing (Felony)	Being in a high-security area without permission or authorization.	Moderate to Major	High-security areas include the Bridge, Captain's Quarters, Head of Staff Offices, Engineering, Atmospherics, the Armory, and Security's equipment and gear rooms. These areas have sensitive equipment which can cause a lot of damage if mishandled and are held to a higher standard of security. A search of the suspect is almost always appropriate if they are found unattended in a high-security area.
Petit Theft	Taking of minor items of little practical importance with the intent to deprive the owner of its use or control.	None to Minor	This covers theft of most minor objects like shoes, materials, food, or very low level ID cards. Returning the stolen property to its owner should be attempted.
Theft	Taking of items of practical importance with the intent to deprive the owner of its use or control.	Minor to Moderate	Typically more valuable but not irreplaceable items, including and not limited to: medical supplies, departmental ID cards, machines or gear relating to job functions, and most personal effects from the crew. Returning the stolen property should be attempted.
Grand Theft	Taking of sensitive items and equipment with the intent to deprive the owner of its use or control.	Moderate to Major	High level and dangerous equipment, including and not limited to: Head of Staff IDs, nuclear disk and codes, head of staff's personal equipment (hypospray, ID Computer board, etc.), firearms, guns, or other important objects. "I found it in disposals/maint" is not a valid excuse.
Minor Vandalism	Willfully breaking station equipment or property of minor importance.	None to Minor	Breaking or damaging station objects or equipment like interior windows (not those bordering space), doors, tearing up floor tiles, smashing lights, and other annoying behavior.
Vandalism	Willfully breaking sensitive station equipment or hampering station operations.	Minor to Moderate	Breaking windows to secure areas, destroying station infrastructure, cutting wires, tampering with airlocks to the degree they are non-functional, or building/placing structures in a way that impedes general movement or station operation (like building walls across main hallways).
Sabotage	Willfully destroying, damaging, subverting, degrading, or otherwise rendering vital station equipment non-functional where such action endangers station operations.	Major to Permabrig	Atmospherics sabotage, attempting to expose areas to space, sabotaging power by cutting wires or destroying substations/power generation/SMES units. Depending on the severity and scope of damage incurred, adjust punishment accordingly.
Arson/Bombing	Intentionally causing or facilitating a fire or explosion to damage the station or the crew.	Major to Permabrig	This crime is also designed to punish those who facilitate fires to take place but do not light them, such as dragging canisters of flammable gas into public areas or releasing it without lighting it. A person who facilitates arson or bombing in this manner is just as guilty as the person who intentionally lights it. Adjust punishment according to scope of damage caused.
Fighting, Affray, Brawling	Causing or participating in a fight in public venue outside of a sporting function (boxing) to the discredit of the public.	None to Minor	This is essentially any public fistfight or other similar brawl where both players mutually are fighting (example: barfights). Split the parties up as best as you can and try to arrest the instigator if you can determine one.
Assault	A direct threat of violence which causes the recipient of the threat fear of bodily harm and where the recipient believes the suspect has the means to carry out the threat.	None to Minor	Assault covers threatening violence and similar mannerisms. Do not arrest people on assault lightly as it is hard to prove and typically will put you in a more difficult situation if that is your only charge.
Battery	Any unwanted physical contact between two parties.	None to Minor	This includes shoving, punching, pulling, cuffing, stripping, disarming, and all similar behavior. Separate the offender(s) and victim(s) as best as you can and try to determine the instigator if you can (sometimes both parties are at fault).
Battery (Aggravated)	Any unwanted physical contact which causes great bodily harm to the victim.	Minor to Moderate	Any amount of fighting, shooting, or otherwise injury to another party that needs a solid trip to medbay can usually be called Aggravated Battery. If the suspect makes an effort to bring the victim to medbay you may consider leniency.
Kidnapping, Abduction, False Imprisonment	Intentionally and without a valid purpose restraining or restricting someone's

Assault/Battery, Violent Crimes

• Aggravated Battery - Unwanted physical contact which causes great bodily injury to the victim. Beating someone pretty good or into critical condition to the point where they need to go to medbay usually constitutes this. Given station cloning and medbay being available, if they make an effort to bring the victim to medbay or give them aid after the crime you may want to be a little more lenient. Minor to Moderate brig time depending on severity.

• Kidnapping/Abduction/False Imprisonment - Intentionally and without a valid purpose restraining or restricting someone's movement in such a way that they cannot freely move or act. This would include cuffing someone and dragging them around, welding someone into a locker or crate, bolting them into an area, or other methods of impeding someone's free movement. Only assign this charge if there is not a valid purpose to restrain the victim. If the victim is being held to stop them from committing crimes, then that's just the "suspect" being a good Samaritan.

Obstruction of Justice, Resisting Arrest

• Resisting Without Violence - Resisting an arrest without causing undue harm to officers or the crew. Generally, this constitutes running away from an arrest attempt, moving away from cuffing attempts, or other evasive actions taken by someone you are trying to arrest to get away from you. Its generally an add-on charge and would constitute minor brig time.
• Resisting With Violence - Resisting an arrest while trying to hurt or disable those effecting the arrest. Disarming you to gain control of your weapons or open violence with melee weapons or firearms are both examples of this. Generally an add-on charge and constitutes minor to major brig time depending on the circumstance.
• Obstruction of Justice/Interfering with an Arrest - This is the absolute favorite of every greytider in the halls. This is any outside person's actions to inhibit your efforts to arrest someone, whether or not they believe the arrest to be valid is irrelevant. Attempting to uncuff a detainee, pulling detainees away or otherwise removing them from your control, or directly attacking officers involved in an arrest can all be examples of this. Anything from Moderate bring time to Permabrig, depending on the danger and severity of the person you are arresting. If they manage to let a known traitor or murderer get free, consider a much heavier punishment when you catch them.

Homicide/Murder

• Attempted Homicide - A situation where you believe that if someone hadn't directly intervened that someone was in imminent threat of dying. A good example of this is someone who continues to beat someone down even after they are in critical condition. If you can separate them before the victim dies, this can be an appropriate charge. Moderate to Major brig time.
• Manslaughter - A situation where someone negligently kills or allows a human being to die without intending to kill them. This is similar to attempted homicide and differs with the victim's death only. The suspect has to have some role in the death of the victim and has to have exhibited some kind of poor behavior that wouldn't be expected which caused them to die. A good example is opening a spaced area knowing full well it was spaced or letting someone in critical condition whom they beat die of their wounds. This is moderate to major brig time and is easier to work with then attempted homicide.

• Homicide - Willful killing of another human being. This can obviously be observed directly but it could be implied based on circumstantial evidence and witnesses. A good example is an (in person) confession from the killer, multiple witness testimony, or circumstantial evidence that could point the suspect to have "more likely then not" killed the victim (example: finding the ID card of the deceased person among the suspect's possessions and having the deceased's body after it was stashed somewhere are two pretty strong connective pieces of evidence that makes it look very likely they pilfered the ID and hid the body to avoid blame, but don't get too overzealous as people may pick up IDs they find on corpses anyhow. Make sure you clone your victim and get his side of the story too). Moderate brig time to Permabrig, depending on any other crimes committed, their prior history that shift, and any other factors at play (example: self defense, while a dubious claim at best, might mitigate the sentence somewhat)

• Aggravated Homicide - Willful killing of another human being where efforts are made to inhibit cloning or other measures to bring them back to the realm of the living. Sabotage of the cloner connected to a murder, gibbing or spacing bodies of recently deceased and uncloned crew, or attempting to hide corpses in unreachable locations among other activities. Essentially if they know they did a murder and try to do their best to hide it and stop the dead man from telling a tale, give them this one. Major brig time to permabrig or execution depending on factors at play.

Treason, Enemy of Nanotrasen, Contraband

• Treason - Definitive evidence that the suspect is more likely then not working for a hostile entity, such as the Syndicate. Being in possession of highly restricted and dangerous contraband known to be used by Syndicate Agents only, without an extremely good excuse, is generally considered enough evidence of this crime. This includes anyone wearing syndicate space suits, gear, syndicate weapons, espionage equipment, etc. Any such contraband of that nature should immediately be seized, the one in possession arrested, searched, and questioned. This crime runs Major brig time to Execution, highly dependent on the demeanor of the suspected and any additional crimes (having just contraband alone is not reason to jump to an execution or permabrigging). Known agents should also have their PDAs seized as these are known to contain Syndicate Uplinks which allow them access to illicit contraband.

For syndicate agents, take the whole picture into account. If your suspect is non-violent and mostly cooperative, you can probably confiscate the contraband, give him a few minutes in the brig, and release him while keeping an eye on him. If your suspect is obviously uncooperative, resisting at every moment, and/or has previously attacked, attempted to kill, or successfully killed someone, consider permabrigging them for everyone's safety instead of letting them run loose. If you can articulate that they'll be a threat to the crew at large, you can usually justify keeping them behind bars. Nature of the contraband is important as well. Espionage equipment like Agent ID's are much less dangerous then guns, explosives, and energy swords.

• Possession of Contraband - Anyone who is in positive control of (in their direct possession or has it in an area only they would logically be able to access) items deemed to be illegal (such as syndicate equipment or restricted items like the RCD, or essentially anything that you have good reason to believe has been stolen from its rightful owner, that they would not have access to), without approval, is guilty of possessing contraband. Do not arrest the crew for this if they voluntarily turn it into security. You do not want to burn that bridge of trust. It is generally better to accept contraband turned in on good faith with no questions asked, but circumstances permitting you may press your investigation further. This crime runs anywhere from no brig time to major brig time depending on the amount and nature of contraband seized.

Considerations for Multiple Crimes

Obviously criminals like to do multiple crimes to be efficient. Your battery charge might also have an ID theft attached to it, or your murder might have six more murders and sabotage attached to it. Use your best judgement and generally go with the most severe crime. As far as multiple similar crimes are concerned, a victim of a Homicide also doesn't get to be a victim of a Battery by the same person, make sure its logical.

Lethal Force

Security is expected to remain non-lethal when the situation logically permits it. If you kill someone, you are usually expected to get them to the cloner and properly arrest them (or, deeply apologize if it was an accident and probably get demoted). It is almost always preferable to arrest someone rather then to kill them on the spot, but circumstances can enable the use of lethal force as an option if you so deem it needed (example, red-hardsuited nuclear operatives breaching the station and gunning down the crew? You better believe they are open season and left where they fall until there is no longer a threat).

Situations

Remember that where possible, Less Lethal force is usually preferred. Harming someone with lethal force when the situation could have probably been resolved more effectively with less lethal is not a good look for you and should be avoided where possible as this damages your relationship with the offender and sometimes the crew. Do not laser people to death after they collapse into critical condition unless you have a very, very good reason to do so, as you are expected to effect an arrest and tend to them instead of killing them outright.

Situations where lethal force may be permissible against a crew member:

• Attacked with lethal force - Against you or a fellow innocent crewmember, this usually permits you to answer with the same lethality if such means are available to defend yourself or the crew (but if you make the wrong call on the situation, be prepared to answer for it, less lethal is preferred where possible)
• Less-lethal not effective or available, must prevent escape - If you only have lethal force left after exhausting other options and whoever you are chasing poses a threat to the station or crew (very likely to cause harm to the crew or station assets, i.e stealing weapons, high value ID cards or other equipment, or syndicate agents/murderers), lethal can be used to incapacitate (not kill) them to effect an arrest. This is less preferable but acceptable.
• Suspect using less-lethal weapons against you - Generally you should meet this with your own less-lethal weapons, but it is safe to say if someone hits you with a taser and cuffs you, you are completely at their mercy and may be killed. If the totality of the situation permits, you may engage someone with stolen less-lethal weaponry with your own lethal weaponry to effect an arrest.

Rioting or Numerous Offenders

The crew may sometimes group up and riot for various reasons at various locations. A large number of crew participating in this type of behavior makes it difficult to arrest any of them without getting attacked by the other members of the riot. The context of a riot or demonstration is important to determine action: if the participants are not actively impeding anyone's usual business and aren't committing any crimes, leave them alone to assemble and do as they please as merely assembling in one location isn't illegal.

A demonstration from a few members of the crew becomes a riot when the crew involved starts committing crimes. Harming other crew members, causing damage to the station, or otherwise committing crimes as a group generally constitutes a riot. A whole riot can be immensely difficult to safely detain. Your best option if you want to move to detain them is to try and identify an instigator or a leader of the group. Use as many officers as you have available to rush the group, single him out, and remove him from the location. Try to arrest and remove one or two people at a time as if you are not at least on equal numbering with the rioters, other rioters will likely try to interfere and free their comrades. You can deposit the arrested in the brig and go back out for additional arrests if needed.

If rioters are causing significant damage or disruption you may choose the option to utilize greater less-lethal or lethal force to subdue them. Any deployment of lethal force on rioters should be preceded by warning any participants that lethal force will be used if they do not disperse. Any crew member who values their life will generally remove themselves from the location on being warned of such and may save you the trouble. If they continue their behavior and disruption at a serious level, you may need to engage them with warning shots to get them to move away (hitting a few participants with a laser or a Drozd SMG with rubber bullets can help them get the message). Be prepared for a fight if any of the rioters have weapons as they may choose this moment to fight back. Try not to outright kill the crew, but if any pose a serious danger do not be afraid to gun them down after the warning has been given.