Creative Incarcerations Corporation is a major corp that operates in North America, Europe, North Africa and many smaller countries. It specializes in running private capitalist based prisons, many of which are noted for their interesting or technological applications.

CryoDetention

The policy of cryogenically freezing prison inmates came into vogue roughly 60 years ago when the Republic of California started taking its multiple life sentence offenders, life sentence offenders and other high profile prisoners and putting them into cryogenic pits. The then frozen prisoner were not nearly the drain on the prison system, nor were they able to bog down the system with a series of pleas and appeals, nor were they able to participate in prison violence. Cryotech facilities required less personnel and avoided dealing with the California Guards and Wardens Union. State funded cryodetention eventually faded in popularity, mostly associated with the high start up cost of building cryopits and holding facilities. 

Creative Incarcerations started buying, then building cyrodetention centers shortly after California started closing their state facilities. Those facilities were eventually also bought and refurbished by CIC. As a protected corporation, CIC is able to field it's own security forces, which protect the Cryodetention Facilities as corporate property. There have been raids in the past against the prisons, mostly to break in and rescue prisoners from long term detention. This has not faired well as few criminal organizations have the technology to resuscitate a cryogenically frozen person. The raid that 'liberated' Thomas 'The Butcher' Howell was ultimately futile as Howell was thawed using several space heaters and then shocked repeatedly to restart his heart. His body was found in a criminal shrine, badly rotten and in disrepair. 

Center #19 

Located in Utah province of the Rocky Mountain Republic, Center #19 is the largest cryodetention facility in the world. It houses almost 3,000 prisoners in a state of deep hibernation looking a combined term of incarceration near 375,000 years. These prisoners are deemed the worst of the worst, and range from cyber criminals who have caused massive collateral damage through their hackings, loss of life or commited cyberterrorism. Also included are serial killers, murderers, rapists, and the criminally insane. 

The Cryopit

The heart of Center #19 is it's trio of cryopits. If pushed to operate 100% of the time, the facility could easily flash freeze 300 inmates a day. Considering the quality and reliability of the pits in Center #19, many prisoners are filed and frozen at 19, then shipped to other holding facilities that themselves lack cryopits or have substandard pits. The center routinely operates in this fashion, which the operators jokingly refer to as the 'Cannery' where they make Canned Crim's. 

Visitors to the Cannery can see something quite exceptional, the efficiency of capitalism in solving the problems of society. The prisoners are carefully screened, tagged with data tags and are then processed through the facility. They are groomed, their bodies shaved and stripped naked before being treated with several sprays of a release agent. This gel will prevent the ice from bonding to their skin, freezer burn is bad on a steak, we don't have shriveled freezer burnt inmates. Once processed they are taken to one of our state of the art cryopit, Cryogenic Hibernation Pit, actually. Once in the pit they are flash frozen. Many attempt to make personal gestures or displays of defiance to save for posterity. Some are famous, such as the cyberhacker 'Flashdrive' MacReady who was frozen while delivering an extended middle finger. Others not so much, such as our own personal favorite here at 19, prisoner 23646053485-D3945, who we call Linda. Aside from our highest profile criminals, with holocasted trials, most criminals here are anonymous to the guards. Only the warden knows the contents of their case files. This secrecy was enacted for several reasons. If the contents of a cryodetention center are not public knowledge, there is a lesser case of organized crime agents from attempting break ins and rescues. There is also the case of Sallah Jessica Hansredi. She was  a cryogenic technician who discovered that she would be freezing the man who murdered her husband and two of her children. Many of you recall that Hansredi is quite famous for having manipulated the cryopit to malfunction, incompletely freeze the convict, and thereby cause his death by hypothermia and physical trauma. 

The Meat Locker

The Meat Locker is the sixteen story geofront under Center 19. The facility is hermetically sealed, and has redundant electrical systems to ensure the continued incarceration of inmates in the event of a power disruption. There are three mechanical decks that handle the refrigeration systems. It is kept at 32 degrees in the Meat Locker to reduce the strain on the cooling and heat exchanger systems that maintain the inmates. Each inmate is held in a plexiglass pod so that the inmate is visible inside their ice cocoon. Walking down the aisles can sometimes be disturbing as almost all of the inmates are frozen in postures and expressions or panic, fear, or personal horror. The defiant individuals are the exception to the rule. There is no shame in the Meat Locker, and anyone offended by nudity should not request a viewing of the inmates. 

Central Administration

The core of Center 19 is the admin facility, where the life signs of the inmates are monitored, as well as the day to day operations of the facility. While 90% of the work done is facilities maintenance and administrative paperwork, the last 10 percent is perhaps the most interesting. The prisoners while in biological hibernation are not inert objects. The mind still functions on a reduced speed and scale. A few thawees have described the feeling a dreaming through a straw, or watching a movie across the street, though a window, through a pair of binoculars. Pioneered by Dr. Mark Barmbillo, the Brambillo process is a form of sleep hypnotic suggestion that allows for a regulation of the dreams of the inmates while they are parked on ice. The process cannot control dreams, or the unconscious mind. However, it can provide prompts and virtual stimuli to guide a dream in a particular direction. This is most commonly used to restore or reinstill ethical or moral values that the convict in question is lacking. The most common involve replaying the crime they are accused of, followed by negative physical stimuli. Once thawed, they will associate that action with instinctive pain and will avoid it all costs.

The Holovids do a wonderful yarn about how CIC is programming criminals and turning them into weapons for the government, the megacorps, the fanatic groups, and anyone else fascinated with the Supersoldier delusion. This is patently false, human programming on that scale involves intercranial surgery and is drastically more expensive than any operations run by CIC. We appreciate the enthusiasm of the writers and film makers, but we also wish they would do more of their homework. But that wont happen. I can tell you after running Center 19 for almost a decade, it is a terribly boring place.

Reanimation Facility

Thawing a convict isn't a fast or easy process. The inmate goes through a patented reanimation process that in a nutshell brings their body temperature up to close to normal before decanting them from their icebox. There is a period of disorientation and during the next week, it is not uncommon for inmates to have skin issues such as cracking, peeling, and the like. After 10 days, there are no physical traces left from their term on ice. 

Plot Hooks

The King Pin

A power player in the criminal world has been tried and found guilty and sentenced to 10 life sentences in cryodetention. Rather than spending the next 200 years on ice, the PCs have been contacted to A. facilitate the liberation of the boss and B. facilitate his reanimation. They can keep him frozen for a while, years if need be, but the criminal organization want's their boss back.

The Sleeping Soldiers

Contrary to the claims otherwise, there is sleep indoctrination going on. Various megacorps are funneling money into CIC in exchange for ex criminals who have been specially trained in their frozen state to not only have specific skills (demolition, cyber hacking, impersonation, etc) but are also programmed to be loyal to the organization that has 'bought' them. The PCs now have to stop elite minions who are former criminals. For a twist, the PCs are the sleeper agents, with artificial love for their employing corp, and unexpected skillsets.

The Activists

There are people who oppose cryodetention, as it is a violation of human rights, or it is just letting violent criminals go in the future after their victims have passed away. Terrorist actions are not unheard of against CIC, which is why most facilities are isolated from the arcologies and megacities, so that degree of isolation adds a boundary of defense and the ability to retaliate with greater force. PCs can be shadowrunners against the corp, or they can be hired muscle brought in because of an alert of an impending raid.

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