The Punishment

In the near future, prisons are overcrowded with convicts, the courts are full and the lawyers overworked. There is literally no money for minor charges and especially in the civil court people have to wait for years until their case can be processed.

Because of this, the legal system gets changed drastically. The goal is to keep as many people as possible out of prison, make the trails short and much more efficient. They call it the "essential punishment." Only one judge without lawyers at all decides over minor charges and disputes in the civil court. The loser of the case has to perform different kinds of sexual acts or might even be enslaved for a period of time to the victim. This system is often used for women if their crimes aren´t too serious but sometimes for men as well. The punishment can be all kinds of things but mostly sexual. There can be public humiliation like the pillory and the walk of shame, sex acts and sexual tasks the felon has to fulfill, like prostitution and as mentions slavery if the criminal committed a more serious crime.

In this last case, the convict loses most of his civil rights until the punishment has been served. If not enslaved she can also lose parts of herrights, like the right to refuse getting photographed or the right to refuse sexual offers.

There can be all kinds of other regulations determined by the judge concerning the circumstances. Does the person has to go to work, can she leave the country or what does she have to wear? The charge of a misdemeanor in case of public nudity and public sex is often invalidated while the punishment is active. The duration of the sentence is also determined by the judge, depending on the seriousness of the crime and how many crimes the convict has committed before.

Some critics say, this new system is too harsh, vulgar and especially brutal for women, but nobody doubts that the expenses for courts went down drastically as well as female crimes. Luckily, some people, mostly men say, not all female crimes vanished.