Prisons in the postapocalypse

[raketenjagdpanzer]

In case I hadn't brought it up before...

I recently read a Punisher comic that I'd missed on it's initial release, one titled The End. The premise is that after decades of his war on crime, Frank Castle is caught and locked in a maximum security prison. On the outside, for reasons of plot convenience, the War on Terror boils over into a shooting war with the Chinese who have world-ending amounts of nuclear weapons which they use. During the "warning phase" (detection of ICBM launch to impact, which is what, like 40 minutes at most when you're talking about Asia to the CONUS?), the governor contacts the prison wardens and orders them to execute all the prisoners in their cells.

Putting this in a T2k context, the implication in the 1e set is that the TDM came as a near-total surprise (although considering a nuclear shooting war was already going on in China and at least tac nuke usage in Europe as well, it couldn't have been that much of a surprise?), "Millions of Americans watching football games suddenly saw their TVs go dark" (or something like that), so a "kill all prisoners" order might not have time to go in effect, assuming that wasn't just for the convenience of the comic.

So what, then, happens to prisons in a T2k setting? For example, Starke prison in FL is where FL's "Death Row" is, yet it's nowhere near a primary site. Orlando has a pretty large jail system, too; even given my rather optimistic outline for Central Florida (which is decidedly noncanon), what happens next?

Do we have any posters connected with law enforcement who can disclose any sort of contingency plans in the face of a disaster of that scale?

[pmulcahy11b]

Well, the cops could all leave, letting the offenders rot in their cells...

[Panther Al]

And that would probably happen more often than not - but I can also see more than a few still doing the best they can to carry out the duties assigned out of professionalism.

[pmulcahy11b]

I'd love to ask my nephew about that -- he was a CO before he enlisted, but he's in Afghanistan right now, and my sister and I had a falling-out, so I don't know the address. US Army Locator might tell me something...

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Here's the relevant part, if anyone cares (actually a lot of the "second act" would make good "Post Apocalyptic Images" fodder, too).

[rnitze]

Well
A. I like this thread! Esp comics
B. High danger prisoners... i can see the "summary justice" though pre-emptive prison riot could be messy
C. Low priority prisons.... prolly put them to work or some such ...guess it depends on where....after all it is a nice source of forced labor... ;-)

I still wanna figure out the POW camps in USA (WW2 we had 666 of them)... and I think less loyal Pact POW's will become goof recruiting ground for Free Polish Bdes I'm designing and such... true German govt wont allow them in, but I have a Libyan campaign and need warm bodies...