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| Action Id: 839 | Crisis: | Participants: Harald(RIP) | |
| Status: Resolved | Submitted: May 11, 2017, 6:07 p.m. | Public: True | GM: Apostate |
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Action by Harald(RIP)
With a couple months passed to let the last laws settle into comfortable use, the next step regarding Thralls is being prepared: courts and judges in Grimhall lands are being instructed to review the penalties for lawbreaking, and assign a reasonable amount silver and service time to each crime (the silver cost for each crime should already be well known).
Once the judges have had time to agree on a harsh but reasonable standard (another couple months), they will be instructed to modify their sentencing of criminals. If a criminal is unable to pay the fine associated with their sentence, they will serve as thralls for a fixed period of time (as long as they commit no new crimes during their period of service, which would warrant an extention), rather than a mutable "debt". Once the law is put into effect, pre-existing debts will remain, but will die out within a generation, as no new debts are ordered for crimes committed.
After this, those convicted of crimes can be considered "Prisoners" rather than "Thralls" if Thralldom is ever banned, going back to being poor serfs (as limited under the prior laws) when their sentence is up. A necessary side effect of this will be doing away with the practice of children inheriting their parent's sentence, bringing Grimhall into line with the rest of the Isles on that point. The increased control granted over their serfs by prior laws should offset any financial losses resulting from ending debt inheritance. Under the new codes, criminals will be sentenced to either death, a fine, or hard labor for a fixed period of time, rather than a mutable debt. If a criminal can't afford the fine, they are sentenced to labor for the fixed period, with the sentence being limited to the criminal themself, no longer affecting their heirs.
Result
Vox up, mixed response due to the general perception of thralldom, even if outside of the public sphere it will have a positive effect on Grimhall's stability, because of preventing abuse cases will make thralldom less of a social caste and more of a transitive state, greatly reducing the risk of any form like mass rebellions. (Equivalent of prison riots vs mass slave revolts)