With all the discussion over the years about our frustrating criminal justice system, one area that has not been discussed as frequently is the role of the criminal code in creating that frustration. It has been observed now and then that our criminal code incentivizes focus on one crime in particular, gross misconduct, as kind of a catch-all charge when no other specific charge applies - and often that is precisely the problem when someone is charged with a crime. The criminal code could in fact stand to be a lot more specific and broader in its application than it is now, and cover some other crimes that can be named and identified rather than rely on just someone breaking their oath, whether it is as a government official or a citizen. And in being more specific, the consequences of committing that crime can be adjusted more suitably. It's also come up periodically that there are several crimes in this code that apply to out-of-character actions best left to administration, and due to administration's careful effort not to tread beyond its duties, they prefer for these in-character crimes to be litigated before taking action. It's also been remarked these are in here because of the COPS treaty.
It is beyond past time for us to redefine the criminal code so that gross misconduct is not a go-to crime to make up for gaps in the code, by making an effort to cover all the ground possible with a broader criminal code. Part of that mission involves tackling the definition of gross misconduct itself - what we have here is really a combined crime for what is properly understood to be malfeasance and misfeasance (or more simply, negligence), which are not equal in severity, and therefore should not be equal in punishment. Besides, the oath is obviously broken by committing any of these crimes, which seems like a side effect of the crime and not something that needs to itself be a crime. I have split gross misconduct into different crimes that cover different scenarios, and emphasize conditions that hopefully make these situations more specific and won't be utilized as easily, while they still cover generic ground if we still need it. Criminal trials are thankfully relatively rare, about as rare as successful convictions, and I am not looking to make them more likely by going too crazy with specific crimes. That being said, gross misconduct does live on in the new crime forswearing, but is now a more minor crime.
I will also be eliminating the out-of-place out-of-character crimes. When it comes to COPS, I believe the originators of the treaty, TWP, already have an excellent solution to this: they state that administration actively enforces these things. So I am including codification of administrative enforcement, creating permission from the RA for admins to act immediately and with discretion on these out-of-character areas. I left proxying out of this list, and retained its inclusion as a crime to preserve the option to take action. Personally, I am of the mind to remove this from the list as well given we never act on it, but I respect that there is debate on whether it ever could be something we want to have as an option, and I am loathe to take options away if they may become needed in some key moment.
Finally, I made some other tweaks that I felt suited the chapter better. I found the adspam clause to be strange since it does not follow the same format of the other clauses, repeats something another clause already allows, in chapter 7 for onsite authority, and gives permission for the delegate to handle it as they see fit. It's another outlier so I threw it out. I also moved some clauses around for what I felt was a more logical order. In a few cases, notably espionage and treason, I beefed up the definition and possible punishments (see revised penal code section), and I enhanced the fraud section by covering another potential scenario that I felt ought to be included along with the others. Since we're doing this overhaul anyway, I also decided to address a minor thing that I know has bugged a few people over the years, and found a better place to address the list of regions with which we are allied or at war. On a similar note, I tried my hand at handling scenarios where officials with more than one office can avoid losing them all at once, as long as they don't get convicted on multiple counts for their various offices.
While I feel the definitions speak for themselves, I figured I would provide a crash course on the new crimes I am introducing in this bill:
Intrusion: think espionage, but limited to internal leaks, even ones limited to just yourself. It's being somewhere you weren't supposed to, seeing something you weren't supposed to see, whether you share it with someone else or not. Someone else, by the way, is a key distinction - espionage is concerned with sharing the information with groups or regions specifically. This crime can also apply to situations where someone somehow gains access to a secure space under false pretenses, though that can overlap with Fraud obviously. You will notice I modified the wording to include bypassing the normal security measures - cracking feels like saying if you somehow got in passively or through a masking mistake by another individual, there may be wiggle room - I aimed to eliminate that wiggle room, though perhaps it was unnecessary. Oh well, I think it works.
Malfeasance: when people think of what used to be gross misconduct, this is the crime that is its natural successor. Abuse of power, corruption, blatantly breaking the law or going outside the bounds of your office is what this handles. Like classic gross misconduct, conviction here is guaranteed removal from office. Unlike gross misconduct, I made other additional punishments optional for this one, though they can also be applied.
Misfeasance: otherwise known as negligence. This is when you took action that led to a bad outcome, or you incompetently botched your job to the point where there were serious consequences. Removal from office is on the table here but not automatic.
Nonfeasance: inaction. You should have done something but chose not to, or froze in the job and failed to take necessary action, leading to bad things happening. Like misfeasance, removal from office is a possibility, but not required.
Extortion: coercion by threatening someone else.
Voter Fraud: I actually don't think this one is likely to happen but it was a gap in the other fraud crimes that i felt was distinct enough from election fraud. If you somehow get unnoticed by administration and sock puppet someone else's account to vote when you're not supposed to, or I suppose cast an additional vote in addition to your ordinary one, then this is the crime you are committing. Without this I suppose Fraud is broad enough to fit, but I gave it separate attention because of its serious implications. This could be false membership in the RA as well as casting a ballot in an election, and since fraud can be rather broad, I did not want to be super specific with the punishments that are available in case we go way overboard on a simple fraud matter. Given the weight of this crime I tailored punishment for citizenship itself, the other two categories would not lend themselves to this I felt.
Forswearing: this is basically gross misconduct repackaged, but treated as a more minor crime. If you want a catch-all for stuff that's too niche to fit in the other categories, you can use this, but you'll want something more specific if it's a serious matter that necessitates something big like removing someone from office.
Similar to my tweak to espionage, I did aim to beef up treason by making it any action, not just taking up arms, and even with espionage I also expanded it to include agreements besides treaties, considering the law now contemplates such things in its diplomacy section. When it comes to the penal code, I also beefed up the options for punishments to be doled out for espionage. I considered throwing removal from office on there, but I figure a charge for malfeasance would also be in order and could take care of that.
I imagine we'll need to chew on this one for a while, so let me know what your thoughts are.
It is beyond past time for us to redefine the criminal code so that gross misconduct is not a go-to crime to make up for gaps in the code, by making an effort to cover all the ground possible with a broader criminal code. Part of that mission involves tackling the definition of gross misconduct itself - what we have here is really a combined crime for what is properly understood to be malfeasance and misfeasance (or more simply, negligence), which are not equal in severity, and therefore should not be equal in punishment. Besides, the oath is obviously broken by committing any of these crimes, which seems like a side effect of the crime and not something that needs to itself be a crime. I have split gross misconduct into different crimes that cover different scenarios, and emphasize conditions that hopefully make these situations more specific and won't be utilized as easily, while they still cover generic ground if we still need it. Criminal trials are thankfully relatively rare, about as rare as successful convictions, and I am not looking to make them more likely by going too crazy with specific crimes. That being said, gross misconduct does live on in the new crime forswearing, but is now a more minor crime.
I will also be eliminating the out-of-place out-of-character crimes. When it comes to COPS, I believe the originators of the treaty, TWP, already have an excellent solution to this: they state that administration actively enforces these things. So I am including codification of administrative enforcement, creating permission from the RA for admins to act immediately and with discretion on these out-of-character areas. I left proxying out of this list, and retained its inclusion as a crime to preserve the option to take action. Personally, I am of the mind to remove this from the list as well given we never act on it, but I respect that there is debate on whether it ever could be something we want to have as an option, and I am loathe to take options away if they may become needed in some key moment.
Finally, I made some other tweaks that I felt suited the chapter better. I found the adspam clause to be strange since it does not follow the same format of the other clauses, repeats something another clause already allows, in chapter 7 for onsite authority, and gives permission for the delegate to handle it as they see fit. It's another outlier so I threw it out. I also moved some clauses around for what I felt was a more logical order. In a few cases, notably espionage and treason, I beefed up the definition and possible punishments (see revised penal code section), and I enhanced the fraud section by covering another potential scenario that I felt ought to be included along with the others. Since we're doing this overhaul anyway, I also decided to address a minor thing that I know has bugged a few people over the years, and found a better place to address the list of regions with which we are allied or at war. On a similar note, I tried my hand at handling scenarios where officials with more than one office can avoid losing them all at once, as long as they don't get convicted on multiple counts for their various offices.
While I feel the definitions speak for themselves, I figured I would provide a crash course on the new crimes I am introducing in this bill:
Intrusion: think espionage, but limited to internal leaks, even ones limited to just yourself. It's being somewhere you weren't supposed to, seeing something you weren't supposed to see, whether you share it with someone else or not. Someone else, by the way, is a key distinction - espionage is concerned with sharing the information with groups or regions specifically. This crime can also apply to situations where someone somehow gains access to a secure space under false pretenses, though that can overlap with Fraud obviously. You will notice I modified the wording to include bypassing the normal security measures - cracking feels like saying if you somehow got in passively or through a masking mistake by another individual, there may be wiggle room - I aimed to eliminate that wiggle room, though perhaps it was unnecessary. Oh well, I think it works.
Malfeasance: when people think of what used to be gross misconduct, this is the crime that is its natural successor. Abuse of power, corruption, blatantly breaking the law or going outside the bounds of your office is what this handles. Like classic gross misconduct, conviction here is guaranteed removal from office. Unlike gross misconduct, I made other additional punishments optional for this one, though they can also be applied.
Misfeasance: otherwise known as negligence. This is when you took action that led to a bad outcome, or you incompetently botched your job to the point where there were serious consequences. Removal from office is on the table here but not automatic.
Nonfeasance: inaction. You should have done something but chose not to, or froze in the job and failed to take necessary action, leading to bad things happening. Like misfeasance, removal from office is a possibility, but not required.
Extortion: coercion by threatening someone else.
Voter Fraud: I actually don't think this one is likely to happen but it was a gap in the other fraud crimes that i felt was distinct enough from election fraud. If you somehow get unnoticed by administration and sock puppet someone else's account to vote when you're not supposed to, or I suppose cast an additional vote in addition to your ordinary one, then this is the crime you are committing. Without this I suppose Fraud is broad enough to fit, but I gave it separate attention because of its serious implications. This could be false membership in the RA as well as casting a ballot in an election, and since fraud can be rather broad, I did not want to be super specific with the punishments that are available in case we go way overboard on a simple fraud matter. Given the weight of this crime I tailored punishment for citizenship itself, the other two categories would not lend themselves to this I felt.
Forswearing: this is basically gross misconduct repackaged, but treated as a more minor crime. If you want a catch-all for stuff that's too niche to fit in the other categories, you can use this, but you'll want something more specific if it's a serious matter that necessitates something big like removing someone from office.
Similar to my tweak to espionage, I did aim to beef up treason by making it any action, not just taking up arms, and even with espionage I also expanded it to include agreements besides treaties, considering the law now contemplates such things in its diplomacy section. When it comes to the penal code, I also beefed up the options for punishments to be doled out for espionage. I considered throwing removal from office on there, but I figure a charge for malfeasance would also be in order and could take care of that.
I imagine we'll need to chew on this one for a while, so let me know what your thoughts are.
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