Perma Escape attempt/Escape to be added/clarified in Legal SOP and Space Law

[EmilyFontaine]

As it stands, Legal SOP has very little information on what to do in the case of an escape attempt, or an escape at all. In fact, if you search the word "Escape" in legal SOP,  the word appears once.
Space law adds slightly more clarification, in that "Any prisoners that escape Permanent Imprisonment or Exile may be detained, executed or killed on sight at the discretion of Security." The same applies to people who escape execution, which makes sense. Now to what doesn't.

Space Law has a modifier/special situation clause that guides security in what to do, when a brigged crew member escapes, or attempts to escape, their cell confinement.

At first glance, there is nothing wrong with this clause. It very clearly guides you in what to do in the event of an escape or escape attempt, even clarifies what is considered an attempt.
Except, this doesn't mention perma. You can extrapolate that this applies to perma as well, which many people, including myself, have insinuated to be the case. However, my most recent round as security has proven, that it is not actually the case.

To avoid turning this into a story thread, I'll be brief. If you want additional information, feel free to ask. Additionally, if I get something wrong about the events, feel free to clarify in the comments.
I was a late joining HoS, playing as Cherry Waves. There were three vampires in perma. They had successfully managed to break two windows, exposing the electrified grilles, broken the flasher in the middle of perma, broken the N2O outlet, and in an attempt to apprehend them, they manage to almost kill the warden by disarming his weapon and firing upon him. If we take the "Escape from Brig" example from above, this is absolutely an escape attempt, but according to Legal SOP and Space Law for Exceptional and Capital crimes, this does not count as an escape, meaning that execution cannot be done.

Further, as the Captain had cryo'd, and there were no present Magistrate, we had to fax CC on what to do with the attempted escapees. We were met with this fax, that the late joining Captain were kind enough to read aloud.

To clarify on the fax response, Jade was killed in the struggle. She was, admittedly much, later revived. Despite all the 4 vampires being apprehended, security was spread extremely thin with the added five traitors that an admin introduced, thus the delay in Jade's revival.

Now, every admin ruling is different. What one admin says isn't necessarily what another one would say, and I can imagine that to be the case in this situation. The problem is that this situation came to be at all. If someone as much as breaks the light bulb in a brig cell on a temporary sentence, their timer is to be reset or five minutes are to be added, due to it being classified as an escape attempt in Space Law. However, as stated above, someone can break almost all the functions of keeping perma prisoners in check, the flasher, the N2O outlet, as well as exposing electrified grilles, and there is no clarification in Legal SOP or Space Law that it's to be treated as an escape or escape attempt. The only option is to throw them in solitary, which has it's own issues.

I am not saying that we execute every single prisoner that breaks the windows in perma. That's what solitary is for. But there has to be some clarification as to what an escape from perma is. Currently, and this isn't even in writing in Legal SOP and Space Law, an escape from perma requires the escapee to actually leave the confinement, either through a broken window, or an open door.

It so no small secret that playing as security can sometimes be very stressful. The round that prompted me to write this suggestion has absolutely, with no contest, been the most stressful round I have ever encountered. Legal SOP is extremely lacking in this case, and the "Escape from Brig" adds too much speculation. Does it apply to perma, too? It doesn't say, so you have to assume that it doesn't. I would very much like to see a change in this, as it would cut down much unnecessary speculation. Sadly, it's not as simple as adding the word "perma" to the "Escape from Brig" modifier, as that would most likely trigger an increase in unnecessary executions. However, a separate modifier similar to it, with clarifications suitable for perma, would be a step in the right direction.

[Abydos]

 

Escaping perma requires literally getting out of perma. Merely breaking through the window into the little lobby like area in perma, still counts as perma as they have no way of escaping through the double doors. And Security can more than easily deal with any prisoner in that area, by use of shooting through the doors (Disablers) or flashbang.

Now if they had gotten further, to say the courtroom using an e-mag and then ran into maints.. that is escaping perma. Likewise if they did it through the main brig area, by e-magging the door, then the doors infront of the brig. It's also the same if another traitor builds an escape tunnel from maints to perma, or through the windows and giving them space suits. Merely breaking the window (Which they often hurt themselves doing and can easily crit themselves) and entering the little area isn't escaping perma.

 

[EmilyFontaine]

Thanks for your comment @Abydos
Many people, including myself to this point, would consider entering the "little area,"  is to be considered escaping, including one of the admins.
Perhaps adding what you're saying to legal SOP to clarify an escape would help us all understand it better, and avoid misunderstandings in the future. And still, the matter of procedure during an attempt to escape still remains. There is some documentation on actual escapes as I mentioned, and that you kindly provided screenshots of, but nothing on attempts. Generally you'll stick them in solitary, which often has the issue of prisoners breaking the window and shocking nearby officers. This can be prevented and fixed, of course, but that largely depends on the round. Again, the issue is the lack of documentation, and now seemingly also conflicting messages from the admin team. This seems to be an area of wide speculation on all parts, further enhancing my belief that Legal SOP and possibly Space Law needs clarification.

Edited August 28, 2020 by EmilyFontaine
Spelling

[MattTheFicus]

To be honest, i VERY much dislike the notion that they have to get THAT far for it to be "escape". The second you leave the main Perma Cell or the two Holding Cells, you have escaped your containment. The amount of Perma Prisoners that "toe the line" because they know space law enough to do so is VERY large, especially amongst some of the Regulars of the server. Its hitting the point, at least in some of the rounds where im playing Warden, that im having to Solitary prisoners in a straitjacket just to prevent them from breaking glass/being shitters and theres only one of those on station. I get that its part of the job of security to manage the Brig/Perma, but at some point its ruining the fun of the entire role to deal with people having greytide-level fits because they got caught doing something Perma-worthy in the first 10 minutes of the shift.

[Eler00]

IMO, we should make credible escape attempts count as an escape for execution, too. If you want to smash up your cell and try to take out the warden when he enters perma you should really expect to be executed if sec feels like it.

[MattTheFicus]

I know a few shifts recently have nearly made me wish Explorers weren't done as often so I could just chuck obnoxious line-toers into the Gateway with an exile implant, but I KNOW theyll likely just slap the poor Explorers just having fun 

[Mitchs98]

I'm going to pretty much echo the concerns that are being made here. I've seen people executed for breaking the windows in perma, just breaking the interior window, and I've seen them executed for stepping outside of that door into the main area with the security consoles. Now. Unless they're extreme shitters that have been doing something constantly the whole time or the round is already in dire straits or etcetra, you shouldn't be executing them for breaking a window.

Now, however, I will disagree(not saying I'm going to directly go against it or anything) with your interpretation on how far out they have to walk out of the room for it to count as an escape attempt. They shouldn't have to break all the way out of the cells area and into the main hall/outside of security for it to count as an escape attempt. They shouldn't be able to maim the Warden/multiple officers and it not count as an escape attempt. The tiny area outside the main cells, in my opinion, should be as far as it needs to go for them to be viable for execution. Them trying to kill officers/warden to get her gear/ID, or actually succeeding, should count as an escape attempt.

There's only two cells in solitary, four if you consider locking down the tiny rooms as 'solitary'. And it's not always a viable solution whatsoever to be able to move them to solitary.

I'm not saying security should be allowed to execute people left and right for the smallest of things, but we should definitely have more leeway to do so in order to punish people that are constantly just trying to greytide security. I get in some instances it's done to actually attempt an escape(and it should be punishable, regardless really), but in most instances it's done to just say 'Fuck you' to security as in a lot of instances they'll never actually escape anyway.

It makes security a slog to play when you have to babysit prisoners. Security should have to interact with prisoners, and it won't always be good. But they shouldn't have to sit there and turn their round into 'Babysit this guy, the game' or leave them in solitary all round and hope they kill themselves. And with the new system requiring you to eat...you'll have to feed them at some point, and start this all over again.

[Corocan]

3 hours ago, Mitchs98 said:

They shouldn't be able to maim the Warden/multiple officers and it not count as an escape attempt. Them trying to kill officers/warden to get her gear/ID, or actually succeeding, should count as an escape attempt.

Well even so, an attempt alone is not enough to qualify a perma prisoner for execution. Unless you're suggesting that any attempt at all should constitute an execution, because I can definitely see that getting abused hardcore.

4 hours ago, Mitchs98 said:

I'm not saying security should be allowed to execute people left and right for the smallest of things, but we should definitely have more leeway to do so in order to punish people that are constantly just trying to greytide security.

I genuinely don't mean this in an aggressive or pointed fashion, but I was wondering if you'd mind to expand on the idea of greytiding that you see happen? Because, unfortunately, there are people within security/command that desperately want to execute antags at any opportunity because the possibility of them escaping is just too much for them to handle so if there's an option to execute, they'll always want to do it, even if it's not really deserved, per se. So to get some examples might help clear up how people are skirting the law in an unfair fashion and hopefully bring some easier to understand justifications to executing them for it.

4 hours ago, Mitchs98 said:

It makes security a slog to play when you have to babysit prisoners. Security should have to interact with prisoners, and it won't always be good. But they shouldn't have to sit there and turn their round into 'Babysit this guy, the game' or leave them in solitary all round and hope they kill themselves. And with the new system requiring you to eat...you'll have to feed them at some point, and start this all over again.

This is sort of an entire facet of the warden's job, in my opinion. Babysitting prisoners is definitely something a warden can and should be expected to do. Perma prisoners especially fall under this purview. Also, I feel like placing prisoners in indefinite solitary confinement for the specific intent of hoping they kill themselves for you is borderline griefing and I feel like solitary should have timers for certain infractions within perma because I see this exact thing happening relatively often.

 

There's some pretty good reasons that you can't just straight up execute someone for the crime of being an agent, vampire, etc. by themselves. Perma is meant to provide something of a second chance for antags who aren't particularly violent. Trying to utilize or permit security/command to kill them before they're allowed to legitimately utilize this second chance is against the spirit of the game, in my opinion.

[MattTheFicus]

Most of the "greytiding" is just breaking the FUCK out of Permabrig. Ive had pretty much one Perma inmate per shift just BREAK EVERY FUCKING machine and all i can really do is toss them in Solitary, where they just break the window in between the two Solitary Cells (which as a note, its not solitary if it has that window). I dont really WANT to execute Perma Prisoners, but if youre being a MASSIVE cunt and just breaking stuff because you KNOW there's no real punishment, thats kind of silly and makes Sec Players just not want to deal with them.

37 minutes ago, Corocan said:

Because, unfortunately, there are people within security/command that desperately want to execute antags at any opportunity because the possibility of them escaping is just too much for them to handle so if there's an option to execute, they'll always want to do it, even if it's not really deserved, per se.

And I truly dont agree with this. 9/10 we dont want to kill Permas because they want/might escape. We call for them to be axed because theyre being MASSIVE bastards in their cell for the SOLE purpose of being mad they got caught in the first 10-20 mins of the shift.

[Qwertytoforty]

Glad this thread was put up. Personally, I just think that if someone slips someone in perma, and starts hitting them, that they should not be executed for that. If that was any other person, that's assault on an officer, but if one does that in perma, sometimes security comes up and executes the person for that, which is a bit ehhhh. Just seems strange.

[Rurik]

14 hours ago, Qwertytoforty said:

Glad this thread was put up. Personally, I just think that if someone slips someone in perma, and starts hitting them, that they should not be executed for that. If that was any other person, that's assault on an officer, but if one does that in perma, sometimes security comes up and executes the person for that, which is a bit ehhhh. Just seems strange.

Feel like its very situational, here, which is the issue. 

A Warden walks in. Gets slipped and punched a few times by prisoner McGee. Warden recovers from stun and stuns McGee. That shouldn't count as a escape attempt. I think we can all can agree on that.

But lets say McGee had cablecuffs/spear. They hid in a locker, slipping the warden as they enter and stabs/cuffs them. Then after the wardens capture/heavy-crit, McGee strips him of his gear. Backup officers arrive before McGee actually gets out of perma and put a end to it. Warden is saved and never dies from crit. That should be the very DEFINITION of an escape attempt. Just because McGee never got out of perma and the warden didn't die shouldn't mean no execution allowed. After all, if the officers didn't arrive quick enough it would be execution from wardens death/prisoner walking out with his ID.

Now if the situation above happened, one could just say "throw them in solitary." Thats a nice idea, but now imagine that its highpop sec round with 3 perma prisoners, two active traitors and only 2-3 competent officers among the entire force. Now imagine any of the prisoners were vamps with their !!FUN!! glares. It quickly becomes infeasible.  

Edited August 30, 2020 by Rurik
typo

[ZN23X]

On 8/28/2020 at 12:11 PM, EmilyFontaine said:

Many people, including myself to this point, would consider entering the "little area,"  is to be considered escaping, including one of the admins.

+1 here

I do tend to throw prisoners in solitary if they break into that room. Tho 9/10 times when someone breaks into that room they're going to make a strong effort to break out of solitary as well... so you are almost better off executing them...especially if security is busy and doesn't have time to babysit.

But I would never OOCly punish security for executing someone who broke into that little room regardless of context. IC issue as far as I'm concerned. 

With the situation where the prisoners nearly killed the warden, those prisoners are now viable to be executed based on the fact that they attempted to kill the warden. Whether or not they escaped is irrelevant. If the magistrate, captain, or HOS approve it of course. IC issue again.

As with everything context and intent matters. I would hope that any admins online at the time would take that into consideration when deciding if any OOC intervention is required.

As always if you are worried about getting bwoinked for whatever course of action you are planning to take you CAN always ahelp it to be safe. 

Edited August 30, 2020 by ZN23X

[EmilyFontaine]

1 hour ago, ZN23X said:

With the situation where the prisoners nearly killed the warden, those prisoners are now viable to be executed based on the fact that they attempted to kill the warden. Whether or not they escaped is irrelevant. If the magistrate, captain, or HOS approve it of course. IC issue again.

Problem is, attempted murder is an exceptional crime and not capital, so it's not grounds for execution. I absolutely agree that they should be viable for execution here, but again, not according to space law/legal SOP

[ZN23X]

8 hours ago, EmilyFontaine said:

Problem is, attempted murder is an exceptional crime and not capital, so it's not grounds for execution. I absolutely agree that they should be viable for execution here, but again, not according to space law/legal SOP

Maybe it does need to be written somewhere but I think that attacking a member of security whether with the intent to disable or kill them when in perma counts as attempting to escape. Because if backup it doesn't arrive, it's not like the prisoners just intend to kill the person just for the hell of it and then stay there. I do see what you mean though. It feels like there's a lot of gray area with how security is supposed to handle things and worrying about OOC consequences makes it that much more difficult.

Edited August 30, 2020 by ZN23X

[Rythen]

Just going to add my opinion onto this because I think my interpretation has been wrong up until this point as well.  In my round today as the HoS we had a case where a vampire escaped from custody multiple times while they were being processed into perma (yeah yeah, we should have had blindfolds on hand so they couldn't glare, hindsight and all that, didn't realize we had none around until it was too late).  But through this they escaped custody while being processed into perma.  Captain ordered them executed for this and I oversaw the execution being carried out.  I was boinked because they escaped but weren't actually in perma yet when they escaped so they said that this is not an escape from perma.   The admin later said that it was justified in this case though. However from this I realized that the admin was interpreting "escaping perma" to refer to escaping the location and not the sentence.  But up until this point I'd been interpreting it differently.

In the SoP itself it says "Any prisoners that escape Permanent Imprisonment or Exile may be detained, executed or killed on sight at the discretion of Security."

Permanent imprisonment to me sounds like the sentence and not the location.  That would mean that escaping from custody if you've been sentenced to permanent imprisonment would fall under this, even if they haven't been put into the permanent prison itself.  If they are sentenced to perma but are being brought to medbay for treatment and escape, this still sounds like an escape from permanent improsonment to me, even though they aren't in perma jail at the time.

If that's not the meaning then I think it should be reworded to say something along the lines of "ANy prisoners that escape from the perma prison" or something along those lines to make it clear that it's referring to the location would be better.  The way it is right now sounds very much like it's referring to the sentence and not the location. 

This is further supported by the fact that the line below, and 3 lines above are also referring to sentences and not locations. It says "Any prisoners that escape from an execution sentence are to be killed on sight".  It does not say "Any prisoners that escape from he execution ROOM are to be killed on sight".  To me it sounds like the intention of the permanent imprisonment one is the same.

Edited August 30, 2020 by Rythen

[SkyPing]

A couple preludes real quick.  In terms of: 

4 hours ago, Rythen said:

yeah yeah, we should have had blindfolds on hand so they couldn't glare, hindsight and all that, didn't realize we had none around until it was too late

We don't have blindfolds in sec by default.  We really should.  The current way to acquire blindfolds is by cutting up bedsheets or something, I don't even know how to do it myself since someone else was (fortunately) in sec to handle it, but the process of getting blindfolds is SUPER esoteric and very very dumb.

Now that that's off my chest, thanks for the thread.  Judging by everything I've read, and based off of Rythen's extremely correct comments about perma being the SENTENCE, and not the actual act of being placed in the perma brig, I'd like to propose a more specific perma escape criteria.  This will obviously have to be prettied up.

An attempted escape from a permanent sentence qualifies if one or more of the following is true:

1. The prisoner has breached their assigned cell, uncuffed.  For permabrig, this means breaching through the the lobby.  For solitary confinement or a standard issue cell set to 60 minutes (should perma be unavailable), this means being outside of the cell and in a hallway.

2. The prisoner is uncuffed and has the equipment necessary to reasonably stun and cuff an officer, or has demonstrated the capability of placing an officer into a critical position. (Beating an officer to death is an escape attempt.  Slipping an officer and punching them a few times is not an escape attempt.  Cuffing an officer is an escape attempt.  Stealing a baton or a taser by itself is not necessarily an escape attempt unless they are also beating an officer to death with it?)

I believe this description sums up everyones concerns on the thread since we all seem to be on the same page here, but please offer opinions and copy/paste this to make it your own.

Edited August 31, 2020 by Ping

[Rythen]

I like the first condition, I think that's very clear.

I think the second one needs to be broadened slightly though.  Consider this example: if a prisoner needed to be transported out of brig and was able to escape custody because for example a clown slipped the officer, they didn't do either of the two things you just mentioned but they did certainly escape custody.  Did they cause the opportunity to escape?  No, but they did however make the conscious choice to use that as an opportunity to run away.  They could have also made the choice to remain in custody knowing that they could be executed if they flee.

Edited August 31, 2020 by Rythen

[SkyPing]

I think the second condition still applies because the prisoner would still be cuffed.  An officer would still be able to catch up with the prisoner before they could remove the shackles, and if the prisoner is unable to retaliate then there's absolutely no logical way they the sec officer could respond with lethal force.  If the clown slipped the officer MULTIPLE times and the prisoner could uncuff himself, that's a different problem and 100% an aiding and abetting charge.

Besides, I don't really see prisoner transport as important or significant enough to bloat modifier since, outside of round end transfer shuttle (or no BP and a medical emergency), perma prisoners rarely get escorted out of perma in practice.  Great point, though.

[MattTheFicus]

I dont know if its possible, but a lot of the people I personally have thrown into Perma are doing it SOLELY from boredom. I would honestly consider sending these (greytider lookin') people to the Prison Camp to mine, but the tracking implants dont work on separate Z-Levels it seems. Giving another option for unruly prisoners might actually be a good idea, but being unable to track them down on Lavaland makes it VERY difficult to do without having a possibility of endangering the Miners or having them return to the station untrackable.

[Kyet]

IMHO there should be one simple section that covers all cases.

E.g:

• Any prisoner that escapes from a temporary brig sentence is to be re-brigged for the full timer they had before, plus 10 minutes.
• Any prisoner that escapes from permanent confinement, or returns from exile, may be detained, executed or killed on sight at the discretion of security.
• A prisoner who leaves the area they're confined to, without permission from Security, is escaping. Merely breaking internal windows or unsuccessfully attempting to escape is not enough, they have to be out of their cell, or for permabrig prisoners, out of the permabrig.
• Prisoners who break windows in their cell or otherwise attempt to break the barriers that keep them contained, but do not leave their cell, aren't escaping, but they can be moved to solitary for the rest of their sentence, to prevent further escape attempts.
• Prisoners who vandalize their cell in a way that does not help them escape (e.g: breaking their bed, botany trays, etc) do not qualify as escaping or attempting escape, and should not be punished. If they want to break the only things they have available to them, let them.
• Prisoners who are moved by security to another area do not qualify as 'escaping' unless they escape that area. Even if they are out of their cell. E.g. a prisoner moved to brig medical for treatment doesn't qualify as escaping unless they get their cuffs off and escape that room.

[Mitchs98]

SkyPing pretty much summed up what I already considered to be an escape attempt anyways, and in the case of point #2 what I considered SHOULD count as an escape attempt. As did Kyet.

Seems we're all pretty much on the same page here.

Edited August 31, 2020 by Mitchs98

[Gr1lledcheese]

I like the idea of timed solitary that was suggested above. 10mins for damage to cell etc. sounds pretty fair and a good way of punishing greytide without giving them the chair. On another note: Could we please remove the windows between solitary cells? Everyone who's ever been in there has broken them and it makes it harder to utilise both cells when there's an aggressive prisoner in one of them.

[Kyet]

Space law updated: https://www.paradisestation.org/wiki/index.php/Space_law#Escape.2C_Escape_Attempts_.26_In-Cell_Vandalism

[SkyPing]

We did it boys, let's go home.

[Accinator50]

I still have two questions regarding that:

 

If an EoC (who is supposed to be permad) was killed in action and escapes after beeing cloned in medbay is he KoS or not? Because he escapes the permanent sentence but wasn't processed yet.

 

And if an EoC died in perma and manages to escape after beeing cloned are they KoS because they managed to escape their permanent sentence and already were processed?

Edited August 31, 2020 by Accinator50