Prisons, Jails, and Places of Holding

#1

Every city, town, or large village will have one. So rather than just list it. I want you to describe the location. In addition to the physical description, I want you to include "flavor text" or bits of description you would give to players incarcerated or passing through the place of holding.

If you have a special law enforcement organization (or other society ) associated with your place, include the link to them.

Old Town Jail

#2

This is originally associated with Old Town ( http://www.strolen.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=36813#36813 ), but can be used anywhere there is a large river or bay.

The Old Town Jail is actually a large ship. It is a decomissioned warship (with all its weapons removed of course) with all but one of its masts removed (there is only one sail on the ship in case of emergency). It is several levels tall. Without much of its weight, it has a light draft (if on a river, t can normally only travel the river in the spring high water levels).

The ship smells of tar, old wood, and old blood. It moves slightly in the current where is is anchored down by four points. The smell of river plants decomposing can be strong during the day, but the breeze along the water clears that every night. The sound of a harmonica can often be heard, playing low and lonely tunes. Though a tradition of percussion (drumming) is strong in the jail, as odd tunes are played at work times or when they decide to dance and entertain each other.

Most of the time, the prisoners are kept under deck. It is a bit cramped and quite gloomy. There are no assigned places for prisoners, so they all just flop where they want. However, there are a good number of hammocks here where the weapons used to be, so crowding is not a problem. The ports have been removed of glass, but they and the weapon's slots, are grilled with iron bars. The food is cooked by a trusted prisoner in the ships old galley. There is very little to do but be bored. The ship board chores of cleaning and mending are actually performed by the inmates, who all have a vested interest in the ship being sea/river worthy. The Guards (called Mates) check the supplies in and out, if anyone wants them.

To be honest, it is a fairly run place. Inmates simply serve their time get out. The Mates (guards) are fairly relaxed, since everyone is "in the same boat". The hammocks are cleaned and rotated often. Most of the Inmates realize that keeping the ship clean and water worthy is in their own interests, so they do their light chores with few complaints. The Inmates keep their own order and most people fall into the system of the decks quite quickly. (In fact most people keep to themselves, rather than risk the rough and dangerous justice of the Inmates). Note: Mates and Inmates all chow the same food, so it is not that bad (if you don't mind too much hardtack), and sometimes share the galley table.

There is little in the way of security on the ship, just a few Mates who man the poop deck and the undercabin. They are there to sound the alarm should someone go over (firing at them with crossbows/ rifles as needed). They also watch the prisoners when they get deck time. They are supposed to attack any unathorized boat coming towards them, but that seldom happens. They are under the command of the most senior guard, called (creatively enough) the Captain of the Jail. The Mates are guards, police militia types, but they wear stripped down surplus navy officer uniforms.

If the Old Town Jail is a bay, the distance from the shore is all the security they need. The town rows out supplies every day or so, inmates are transfered on th same craft.

If the Old Town Jail is on a big broad river, the distance from shore is some security (as before the days of gym clubs, not many people learned to swim well). However there are two low narrow towers on either side of the bank. In each is posted two guards at most times, just to make sure nobody "gets any ideas". One of these towers have the official office of the Old Town Jail where papers are kept to satify the legal types.

The city side tower has a small dock for "The Key", the only ship that is supposed to go out to the Jail. It is crewed by Mates who are not onboard at the moment. They are a bunch of clumsy sailors, but they get the job done.

The Paul and Peter Fortress

#3

From the outside, the Paul and Peter Fortress is a massive grey castle that stretches into the clouds, and when the sun shines on it, then it gleams off the barred windows and steel gates.

Life inside is deeply dull. There are four people in each of the cells,who spend their time talking to each other, sleeping, and reading books from the prison library.It is likely that many famous robberies have been planned in the cells and carried out after the prisoners have been released.
They are let out for an hour of excersise a day in the prison courtyard, sometimes two hours in summer.By day and often long into the night, the chattering of the imnates can be heard.

Since many of the prisoners are serving long sentences, the guards mostly tend not to provoke them to avoid riots.However, if a prisoner does attack a guard, he is beaten with batons and then flogged, his screams heard through most of the prison.Escape is almost impossible.Should a prisoner escape, the sentences of the prisoners in the two closest cells to his are doubled.Should said prisoner be recaptured, he will soon be beaten by his fellow prisoners.

The higher up one's cell teir, the higher the prisoner stands in the underworld.The bottom teir holds the lowest of the low, sex offenders and informers, as well as those on Death Row.Should a major organized crime boss be convicted (very rare, but it happens) he is put in one of the tower cells.

The food is disgusting, everybody agrees on that.

A gallows stands in the courtyard in full view of many of the prisoners. Hangings are for murder and high treason in time of war,and not all murderers are in fact hanged.

Prisons, Jails, and Places of Holding

#4

.Should a prisoner escape, the sentences of the prisoners in the two closest cells to his are doubled.

Wouldn't that lead to serious unrest among the inmates in the long term? I mean why provoke them by punishing them for a crime they are innocent of?

Prisons, Jails, and Places of Holding

#5

Well, if the security is good enough (it was said there are very few successful escapes), it isn't that much of a problem. The motivation is clearly to make people betray each other... isn't there also a rule that hindering an escape halves your punishment?

Side note: if you are a prison warden, you don't exactly want the prisoners to be nice to each other... order yes, allied prisoners NO.

Elven Prison

#6

What is an Elven Prison? The entire city. Elves who trangress the sacred traditions of elder life (i.e. the Law in Human Speak), are bound to the city. They are given a slender band around their wrist that can not be removed by normal means. (This slender band can be other things, it varies from city to city). The band remains for the duration of the sentence. The band provides several compulsions.

1) Once banded, the person is unable to leave the city or enter the "quiet places" inside the city. This means they can not commune with nature to rejuvinate themselves as other elves do. They actually begin to age (slightly) because of this.

2) Related to the above, they feel the drag of time. Time is no longer a soft breeze that passes over them. They feel the grit and tear of time. This is the greatest punishment to an Elf. They now feel boredom and decay.

3) They are forced to reflect upon the errors of their way in their quiet moments. So if they are idle, they are forced to go over and over their crimes and punishments. This leads to 4..

4) They must also obey any command given to them by an Elf (or specific non elf residents of the city). Thus the prisoners are the "servant class" of the Elves. (Note: It is illegal to abuse the prisoners in most ways, so they are moderately politely treated). Servants actually like to be kept busy, so they will sometimes take on additional responsabilities gleefully to avoid or limi their exposure to 2 and 3. They are responsible for much of the building and scut work around the city.

PS: It is considered hugely impolite to mention one's prisoner status, so people will participate in verbal gymnastics to skirt around the issues when it comes up.

Please note that it is very, very easy to violate Elven law. Those that have not broken it recently live like nobles. Those that have, are their serfs.

The Place of Holding

#7

The Place of Holding in Antioch is fairly basic. It utilizes three good sized pits left over from the days of mining star stones. These "pits" have been finished with a cladding of stone upon the walls, floor, and even ceiling. There is a slow trickle down one of the walls in all the pits. The trickle then slides around a gutter along the walls as basic sanitation. There is a small grate drop in the floor leading a quite aromatic cess pool. The grate drop is only three inches wide. Even if you went down it, it only leads to the three other holding cells. The only light is the spill over from lights in the room above through the grate.

Prisoners are lowered down into the pits from a grated opening in the "ceiling" of the pits. Food, flat bread mostly, is dropped down the grate once a day. Any challenge to the removal or insertion of prisoners, or interference with the gate, is an automatic death sentence via guard crossbow. The conditions are horrible, but the stays are short. Prisoners stay in these lovely accommodations for up to thirty six weeks.

The Western Bogs

#8

In many of the towns of the Western Bogs there are no prisons. Not because they aren't needed, but because an entirly different method. The Offender is given a shovel and told to dig straight down for a day, at the end of the day the shovel is taken from them and the are bound and thrown into the hole. The Guard then places a extremly heavy grate over the hole and the prisoner is left there. In the winter the tempature will get up to about -5 C(20 F) at midday and bitterly cold at night. The Shovel has a Helspar tip and during the winter the prisoner is given a balnket and about five coals to keep themselves alive during the night. During the summer it's worse. If you managed to dig down deep enough to stand up/kneel you'll be like that all night, with water at your chin, may don't get it that deep because of all the water that floods the hole while they are trying to dig. During the nigh many are literally eaten alive by the many bugs/snake/other things that inhabit the marsh. Needless to say many prefer death to imprisonment, because if they are given a more than one day sentance they are pulled out of the hole in the morning and forced to dig another, about a hundred feet away so that the animals will be able to find them quicker.