Cherub54321 - Candidate for DoJ Minister - October 2023

[Cherub54321]

Who Am I?

Hi there, I'm Cherub54321 and I'm running for DoJ minister in these elections! I joined BC over 3 years ago, in May 2020. Since I joined, I've spent far too much time on the server (over 14 weeks) and during that time I've gathered a lot of knowledge about the server and government. I'm currently a Senior Admin and the mayor of Covington City, and although I don't currently hold any positions within our government I have served in all three (now two) branches of our government including but not limited to the positions of Prime Minister, Judge, DoJ Minister and Speaker of Parliament. While I learnt a lot from all of these positions, the role I really enjoyed was DoJ minister, and this is why I'm running for the position again today.

Why Am I Running?

The Department of Justice is in my opinion the most important part of our government. Without them, the vast majority of our laws would not be able to be enforced, and our nation would be in anarchy. While the department at the moment is doing ok, it is my belief that it has so much more potential. I want to see the true introduction of criminal role play, including robberies, a black market, special forces and an improved jail to name a few (more details below in policies). I also want the department to become more active and open to all, with the reintroduction of an exam level job, and the removal of redundant roles.

What Did I Implement Previously?

During my previous time as DoJ minister, I implemented many things that are still in use to this day. One of my first actions as DoJ minister was the creation of the Auxiliary Police role, which was a new entry level exam job. This proved to be extremely popular, and while the name and definition has changed many times over the last few years, the concept still exists in it's current form as the Trainee Police Office role, which is still the departments entry level role, though now applied for on forums. Continuing on, I added handcuffs and removed the old handcuff command, adding a significant amount of roleplay to the procedure of arrests, and worked with parliament and cabinet for the introduction of guns to the server. I also added in police stations in other cities, and worked with windows for the creation of the state emergency system. During my time as DoJ minister, many department members told me how much they enjoyed working in the department, and how the work environment made them feel valued and proud to be a member of the DoJ. Members of the public were also extremely satisfied with the department, in particular how quickly we responded to issues and that our department members were acting professionally. "Im happy with the DOJ. I couldnt care less about the money, but im really happy to see that when i complained about the killing, it was taken seriously and with action." - feedback from a member of the public given to me after an incident involving one of our officers.

What Are Your Polices?

Activity Improvement/Exam Job: The Department of Justice, along with the majority of the other departments, is suffering from a lack of members. As a department, there needs to be a lot of members, as it needs to be able to respond to crimes at any time of the day or night. I therefore would be changing the trainee Police Officer back to an exam entry. This will insure that we will get an increase of new members, however they will still need to be trained by an experienced department member before being able to do their job.

Department Simplification: Currently the DoJ has a lot of roles, and the majority of citizens are not sure who to contact in particular if there's a crime, or even who is in the DoJ. To simplify this, I will reduce the roles to just five roles, namely Minister, Captain (Deputy Minister), Sergeant, Police Officer and Trainee Officer. The duties of each of these roles will be as follow: Minister will be in charge of the operation of the department, and directly overseeing any disciplinary issues/reports against officers. The Captain (Deputy Minister) will supervise Police Officers and be acting minister in the event of any issue where the minister is unavailable. Sergeants will be be responsible for training and overseeing Trainee Officers. Police Officers and Trainee Officers will continue their duties as they currently do.

Improved RP (crime): Crime RP is something that a huge proportion of players want, with many new players joining and asking about it, to existing players setting up their own roleplay such as kidnapping/drugs. I would therefore like to introduce more avenues for crime roleplay including the following:
- Bank Robberies: This has been something that has been talked about several times, however never actually implemented. I would like to work on a system where it would be possible to rob banks, and to have a fair way to be able to get away with it. (for example, you would need to evade arrest for 30 mins and then you are no longer wanted, however you would not be able to teleport or use elytras.)
- Black Market: I would add more illegal items for players to be able to make and buy/sell (for example treasure looted from ruins on the new map), and I would also want to reduce the punishment on existing illegal items for example drugs. RP is a key part of our server, and the punishments shouldn't be so harsh for items that have no real harm.
- Player Robberies: I want to add a system where when you kill a player there's a chance you might get a percentage of their balance (ONLY ON THE NEW CITY MAP). This will add a slight risk to dying, and will act as an incentive to killing people, and it will also encourage people to deposit their balance in player/government owned banks.

Improved RP (Jail): A new jail has been something that has been talked about for a long time, however has not yet been done. It is my belief that this is of uttermost importance, as many new players leave after being arrested because the jail is so boring. While jail does serve as a punishment, this is a computer game, and players shouldn't be expected to just sit in a cube for sometimes hours. I want players to be able to walk around the new jail and explore, as well as to be able to do basic exam jobs and qualifications. We could also look into a way for players to make a very low wage doing jobs such as mining/farming within the jail to gather resources for the government.

Riot/Protection Training: While riots are very uncommon at the moment, the DoJ should be prepared to deal with them. If done properly, riots can be great experiences for DoJ members and the public (Just ask anyone involved with the Troutman riots in 2020!) However last time there was any form of riot, it was shut down immediately with the threat that anyone on the capital would get 30 minutes in jail. Riots are a great time for RP and this is not the way it should have been dealt with. I therefore want to restart training for department members on how to properly deal with riots, including pvp, crowd control and state emergency procedures. Last time I was DoJ minister this was extremely popular, and ultimately proved useful when we had a riot about the DoA to deal with. (Want to find out more about riots? Watch this video from 2020 filmed by windows_dog)

Thank You for reading my election thread! If you have any questions please either message me here on forums, or on discord (cherub98765) and I will endeavour to respond to you as soon as possible!

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[violetunknown]

Hey Cherbob! I have a few questions on your policies, if that's okay:

1. Will there be an option to opt out of this system for those who don't value the criminal RP aspect of BC? Personally, I have items and tools that I've had for years and have been given to me by dear friends who I lost contact with. It might be more difficult to engage in above-ground business if every time you take money out of the bank to make a large purchase if a random joe can come along and steal some of it.
2. If this system will not have an opt-out, will there be a way to minimize the loss of money/item? Like perhaps some totem that is guaranteed to be the thing taken from your inventory upon a steal, or one that drastically reduces the chances of anything being stolen?
3. I know, in my personal experience, a lot of players are desperate for jobs, even low-paying ones, but do not know where to start, or cannot find a consistant source of income. Do you have a method for preventing these players (or even homeless/bored ones) from abusing the improved jail you propose and intentionally breaking the law JUST to go to jail?
4. How do you anticipate that moving the Trainee Officer back to an exam job might affect the quality of Stratham's police force? In your opinion, will this change make it easier for people who are just in it for the money to abuse the exam? How about people who have recent or extreme criminal records - how will you prevent them from becoming police officers?
5. If your movement to make TO an exam job is vetoed (or shot down, or however bills are opposed as a minister, I'm not sure about that bit,) do you have any other strategies for increasing DoJ activity?
6. What kind of rewards would be available for players robbing banks? How do you think adding this feature will affect the government's balance?

I'm so excited to learn more about your policies and the changes you'll make should you become minister, and I wish you luck in your campaigning!

Sincerely,
-vi

 

[Cherub54321]

Hi there Violet, thank you for asking these questions! Here are my answers to each of the questions you asked:

1. Will there be an option to opt out of this system for those who don't value the criminal RP aspect of BC? Personally, I have items and tools that I've had for years and have been given to me by dear friends who I lost contact with. It might be more difficult to engage in above-ground business if every time you take money out of the bank to make a large purchase if a random joe can come along and steal some of it.

While I believe that criminal RP is a key area that we need to work on within the server, I do understand that there are people who would not enjoy this, and also the concern that this could lead to increased murder rates with people attempting to rob people. I think that currently on the server death is of very little concern to our players, and yet the punishments for murder do not reflect that. What I think is key to note is that this proposed RP would only take effect in the city world, where people receive these harsh punishments when arrested for the crime.

I have to admit I did not consider items that are dear to us, I know myself I have items that I would be very upset if I were to loose them. I therefor want to remove the item dropping aspect of this, and leave it to just a chance to get a small percentage of the players balance. My policies have been updated to reflect this change.

I would also like to point out that although this is one of my policies, I would like to make sure that this goes though a public consultation period before any changes are made, as this will be a cause for concern for many players and I would want to make sure all citizens are happy with the details, such as the chance that money is taken and what percentages could be taken.

2. If this system will not have an opt-out, will there be a way to minimize the loss of money/item? Like perhaps some totem that is guaranteed to be the thing taken from your inventory upon a steal, or one that drastically reduces the chances of anything being stolen?

As I said above, I have decided to withdraw the chance of items being robbed. In order to reduce the loss of money I would recommend keeping your money in a bank, and only withdrawing when you need it. Although this may be slightly more inconvenient than at the moment, you would be able to gain interest on your savings, and it would be more realistic as in real life you don't carry around thousands to buy everything you need to.

3. I know, in my personal experience, a lot of players are desperate for jobs, even low-paying ones, but do not know where to start, or cannot find a consistant source of income. Do you have a method for preventing these players (or even homeless/bored ones) from abusing the improved jail you propose and intentionally breaking the law JUST to go to jail?

We already have a lot of players wanting to go to jail, what this will change is that the players won't just leave once they find out how boring it is. While my proposed changes may mean that some players head to jail to get a start, hopefully the money they earn while inside will enable them to get a stable start in the game and actually lead to a decrease in reoffenders. After all, whatever there is in the jail it's still not the same as being able to interact freely with the rest of the server and game.

By enabling inmates to gain qualifications and exam jobs, as well as the chance to make a basic income, this will set them on the right footing to become valuable members of our nation once they are released, as they now will have everything that they need to move forwards with life on the server.

4. How do you anticipate that moving the Trainee Officer back to an exam job might affect the quality of Stratham's police force? In your opinion, will this change make it easier for people who are just in it for the money to abuse the exam? How about people who have recent or extreme criminal records - how will you prevent them from becoming police officers?

The key part to this system is to have a rigorous training system in place. Even through an application based system to appoint officers, you still are not able to be 100% certain as to who is going to be a good officer or not, all it does is discourage potential candidates who are not sure if they are going to be accepted or not. When the exam was around when I was last in the DoJ, the standard of Police Cadets as they were called at the time was incredibly high, and we ended up with several players who had never previously considered a career in the DoJ becoming amazing police officers and even getting higher up in the ranks of the department.

With regards to people with criminal records, it would be possible for us to apply a say 1 month exclusion to anyone who had committed a crime from the exam.

5. If your movement to make TO an exam job is vetoed (or shot down, or however bills are opposed as a minister, I'm not sure about that bit,) do you have any other strategies for increasing DoJ activity

As far as my understanding is, moving the role to an exam job would be completely within the departments remit so would not be able to be vetoed/shot down. However, I would also like to work on increasing department activity by making sure that members feel valued and enjoy working within the department. One of the things I like to operate as a minister is a monthly events night within the department, where members get to have fun and get to know each other that little bit better to make the department feel more of a team.

6. What kind of rewards would be available for players robbing banks? How do you think adding this feature will affect the government's balance?

The rewards for robbing a bank would depend on how difficult it is to do when implemented, however we would be looking at a cash prize of around possibly 1-3k. I don't believe that this would have a significant effect on the government balance (currently at 7.4 million), as there would be a cooldown, and so with the reward level I mentioned you'd be looking at about a 50k loss a month (while that may sound like a lot, it'd take 140 months, or around 12 years, to drain the government balance). This money is also likely to be readded to the balance, as a lot of players are likely to use it to buy vehicles or plots, the money from the sales of these items goes straight back into the gov balance.

I hope that answers your questions, if you have any more please let me know and I'll be glad to answer them!