[Ixal]

Has there ever been a book in SR that took a deeper look in how prisons work?
Not just a few sentences that prisons suck but details about how to get in, get out and how they work internally (gangs, smuggling, how they deal with awakened and emergent characters. Possibly also how non-metahuman sapients or infected are handled in places where they are still considered people). Maybe also some different types of prisons like Matrix/VR prisons and things like that.

[Reaver]

Has there ever been a book in SR that took a deeper look in how prisons work?
Not just a few sentences that prisons suck but details about how to get in, get out and how they work internally (gangs, smuggling, how they deal with awakened and emergent characters. Possibly also how non-metahuman sapients or infected are handled in places where they are still considered people). Maybe also some different types of prisons like Matrix/VR prisons and things like that.

Last book that had more then a paragraph here or there that I remember was the (2e?) Lone Star book. And even then it wasn't much more then a page or two.

[MercilessMing]

The Shadowrun subreddit had a worldbuilding thread in the last couple months that dealt with prisons.  You can start looking there.

Throwing in my 2 nuyen, when it comes to managing Awakened prisoners, I really don't like the draconian nature and limited usefulness of things like mage masks and mage cuffs.  In my game there's a chemical solution to that problem that suppresses peoples' connection to magic.  A newly processed prisoner would receive injections every couple of hours, and over the course of a day their connection to magic would go away completely.  Then the prisoner could join the general population.  Much cheaper, humane, and feasible than canon methods.  The doses taper off to once a day, then once a week to maintain the suppression, and Magic returns at a rate of 1/day once the doses have elapsed.  This opens up RP opportunities to infiltrate and replace the drug with saline or do some social engineering on the medical techs.  If the poor sod is in the clink for years, they may suffer permanent damage to their Magic.  Old ex-cons may have lost their talent for good.

[penllawen]

That’s not a million miles away from canon - a slow release dose of Blight (from No Future IIRC) would have approximately those effects.

[BeCareful]

Blight's from Better than Bad, but yeah, that sounds like a better way to do it, and more meta-humane than just giving someone a dozen omega-grade datajacks and making the prisoner pay them off.

[Ixal]

A pity but not all that surprising. How often does it happen that the whole team gets captured and thrown in the same prison?

As for awakened, maybe a VR prison would be cost effective for them. Have a offline host in the prison, connect the awakened prisoners to it and disable the ability to log out. You need to keep the bodies on a drip and muscle athropy is a problem so you can't just disconnect them and throw them out but at least make sure they can walk. Still for awakened that might be cost effective.
Although that orobably only works for adepts as mages can simoly summon a spirit to unplug them

How much control do prisons have over who gets parole (and after how much time) to get rid of unprofitable prisoners?
I also wonder how infected prisoners are handeled in places where they are considered people. Feeding them would be a PR nightmare.

[penllawen]

and more meta-humane than just giving someone a dozen omega-grade datajacks and making the prisoner pay them off.

Methods of restraining mages that are overly and overtly harmful to them don't make much sense to me. Mages are rare, valuable, and -- if they're in prison -- pretty down-on-their-luck. Seems to me corp recruiters would be regularly scooping them out of prisons, securing token sentences and early release in return for indentured servitude/undying loyalty [delete as appropriate]. Well, unless the crime that put them there was so heinous as to make a megacorp blush -- but that's a pretty fraggin' short list.

[Sphinx]

and more meta-humane than just giving someone a dozen omega-grade datajacks and making the prisoner pay them off.

Methods of restraining mages that are overly and overtly harmful to them don't make much sense to me. Mages are rare, valuable, and -- if they're in prison -- pretty down-on-their-luck. Seems to me corp recruiters would be regularly scooping them out of prisons, securing token sentences and early release in return for indentured servitude/undying loyalty [delete as appropriate]. Well, unless the crime that put them there was so heinous as to make a megacorp blush -- but that's a pretty fraggin' short list.

Yep. Have a cortex bomb, report to your new supervisor.

[Horsemen]

It doesn't get into the details so much on how it is run but I believe it was in the last Seattle Sprawl Boxed Set that they detailed one prison and had hooks for breaking into it as a Mission.

[Trigger Lynx]

As a convicted violent offender, I could offer plenty of insight into how modern correctional facilities operate, and you may or may not be surprised to find that the "draconian and inhumane" treatment of Awakened (and even 'wared) PC's isn't  far stretch from how things are run right now. Due to graphic nature of this information, I'd rather not post it hear for fear of breaking Forum Rules, but feel free to PM me if you want some info to help you put together a real-deal "yard" game.

[Trigger Lynx]

EDIT: somehow I quoted myself, sorry for the double post.

[CanRay]

I wrote up a huge thing on this.  Then decided that I didn't want to go that dark for people that don't know just how bad the system is.

Let's just say that my Father was arrested for being an old hippie (he was caught holding because of a snitch, and plead guilty, did his time, got out) and the number of ways the prison tried to outright kill him was very, very startling.

[Trigger Lynx]

I wrote up a huge thing on this.  Then decided that I didn't want to go that dark for people that don't know just how bad the system is.

Let's just say that my Father was arrested for being an old hippie (he was caught holding because of a snitch, and plead guilty, did his time, got out) and the number of ways the prison tried to outright kill him was very, very startling.

From the water you bathe in to the food they feed you, never mind the violent sociopaths that get paid by the State to "keep everyone on line".

[CanRay]

Also, a reminder that they want people like me dead in horrifying ways.

Even if they don't turn off the water, most mentally ill people in prison gets put into The Hole (or the modern equivalent) for lengths of time considered to be A Form Of Torture by the United Nations.

No, it would be a bad idea for me to sign onto a prison book.  I'd have too many ideas.

[Reaver]

Also, a reminder that they want people like me dead in horrifying ways.

Even if they don't turn off the water, most mentally ill people in prison gets put into The Hole (or the modern equivalent) for lengths of time considered to be A Form Of Torture by the United Nations.

No, it would be a bad idea for me to sign onto a prison book.  I'd have too many ideas.

And the "West" is the humane part of the world....

Care to look at the prison systems in other parts of the World?
Isn't it Singapore that has a prison known for driving inmates insane?