Fireblaze wrote:Hello, Im new to Shadowrun and have some questions about crime in Shadowrun.
You came to a place.
Who is enforcing the law in Shadowrun? If its the corporations wouldnt they just look out for anything prevent them from making money and skip the rest?
Law is handled by committee. That is to say that there are different legal authorities that have overlapping jurisdictions. Kind of like how people don't really know whether county sheriffs or city police have the right of way in many matters. The thing that makes it all go to hell is that the people actually in those police organizations are
mercenaries. And they are hired by
someone with a vested interest in having security in an area.
So when you go to the mall, the mall cops are basically just like they are now, except that they have actual authority to shoot and/or arrest people. And I really do mean
exactly like they are now. So they are there on contract, and the contract might be paid for by the mall, or by the city, or some combination. Indeed, some stores with more to protect may very well go behind the back of the mall and the city to increase the protection level or hire an additional set of security guards.
The most out-there example in SR history was that for most of Shadowrun's print run the primary police contractors for the city of San Francisco were the Nippon Imperial Marines. That is that a corporation (MCT) hired a segment of the actual military of the Nippon Empire to enforce the law in a city on the far side of the Pacific. And the city accepted this because they were going to have to hire some kind of law enforcement contractors anyway. So yeah, this system is so messed up that you can end up paying a foreign power to invade you.
Im also curious about a reference about "investigating authorities" in the "Why Crime" section, what is that refering to?
That's going to be whichever police contractors find themselves contractually obligated to investigate a crime that has already taken place. In the case of a crime against a megacorp that may well be just the megacorp's internal security forces. For a crime in a more public area that might be several different and competing police contractors.
Another question deeper question perhaps outside of this thread that comes up is who writes the laws?
Just like today: anyone who wants to. Actually getting your laws enforced requires you to have political and/or economic power.
-Username17