superheroes and jails
Jan. 21st, 2021 11:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliWas thinking about jails and prisons in worlds with superpowers.
Not those FOR people with superpowers. Those for ordinary unpowered crooks.
If powers come out of nowhere, the big difference would mostly be preventing superpowered break-ins.
But if there are things that can be done to trigger superpowers, there would be vast concerns about preventing their being done near prisons. Or especially jails, since those are generally near population centers. (A jail being where people are held awaiting trial, or when the sentence is less than a year.)
Except that they would not be near population centers. Especially if the triggering could be done accidentally. They would also be secret locations to prevent intentional triggering. (Might not go so well for those doing the triggering, but would still be unpleasant for the rest of us.) And there would be precautions, probably superpowered to keep them secret and possibly to handle the transport so they can be more distant.
Fortunately, a lot of superpowers in my world take the third path and use their powers for neither crime nor direct crime fighting.
Not those FOR people with superpowers. Those for ordinary unpowered crooks.
If powers come out of nowhere, the big difference would mostly be preventing superpowered break-ins.
But if there are things that can be done to trigger superpowers, there would be vast concerns about preventing their being done near prisons. Or especially jails, since those are generally near population centers. (A jail being where people are held awaiting trial, or when the sentence is less than a year.)
Except that they would not be near population centers. Especially if the triggering could be done accidentally. They would also be secret locations to prevent intentional triggering. (Might not go so well for those doing the triggering, but would still be unpleasant for the rest of us.) And there would be precautions, probably superpowered to keep them secret and possibly to handle the transport so they can be more distant.
Fortunately, a lot of superpowers in my world take the third path and use their powers for neither crime nor direct crime fighting.
no subject
Date: 2021-01-22 10:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-22 02:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-22 05:52 pm (UTC)On one hand, most people aren't terribly dishonest.
On the other hand, crime-fighting demands lots of information, which can be tainted. Clark Kent worked at a newspaper and had lots of sources, but even so it stretched willing suspension of disbelief to think he could keep track of so much.
Even somebody with a civic-minded interest in fighting crime might give it up after he's been lied to and captured the wrong "criminal" too many times.
On the third hand, the temptation to cut corners in their ordinary careers and lives might get to be a bit much for the none-of-the-abovers, and they could slip gradually off the straight-and-narrow.
no subject
Date: 2021-01-23 12:20 am (UTC)