Is bounty hunting a thing in honorverse?

JohnRoth wrote:It depends on your definition and the jurisdiction. If someone's profession is locating people for whom law enforcement has have posted rewards for their apprehension and returning them to the appropriate jurisdiction to stand trial, then they're bounty hunters in the strict sense.

Here in the US, in most jurisdictions bounty hunters usually work for bail bond services and require a license. In many jurisdictions (still in the US) they have extraordinary powers to track down and apprehend people who have skipped bail.

Are there bounty hunters in the Honorverse? Given the diversity of planets in the Verge, I'd be very surprised if there weren't. I'd be just as surprised if they worked on any kind of interstellar basis, or had anything to do with interstellar piracy.

So bounty hunting could be a thing, but almost strictly on a local level?

Rednek731 wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:It depends on your definition and the jurisdiction. If someone's profession is locating people for whom law enforcement has posted rewards for their apprehension and returning them to the appropriate jurisdiction to stand trial, then they're bounty hunters in the strict sense.

Here in the US, in most jurisdictions bounty hunters usually work for bail bond services and require a license. In many jurisdictions (still in the US) they have extraordinary powers to track down and apprehend people who have skipped bail.

Are there bounty hunters in the Honorverse? Given the diversity of planets in the Verge, I'd be very surprised if there weren't. I'd be just as surprised if they worked on any kind of interstellar basis, or had anything to do with interstellar piracy.

So bounty hunting could be a thing, but almost strictly on a local level?

That's my take on it. Now, it's quite possible that there are some interstellar bounty hunters, but on most civilized planets law enforcement does not issue rewards for criminals who have fled the planet. It's possible that private individuals may offer rewards-in fact you see them all the time in the form of "information leading to the arrest and conviction of xxx." If there are enough such offers from pissed-off plutocrats, it may well be possible for a few people to make a lucrative living from chasing the miscreants down, validly issued arrest warrant in hand.

They're much more likely to be private intelligence agents whose skill is mostly accessing data banks and shaking them down for interesting leads than the main characters in shows like "Have gun, will travel" or Janet Evonovich's Stephanie Plum novels.

Rednek731 wrote:

JohnRoth wrote:It depends on your definition and the jurisdiction. If someone's profession is locating people for whom law enforcement has posted rewards for their apprehension and returning them to the appropriate jurisdiction to stand trial, then they're bounty hunters in the strict sense.

Here in the US, in most jurisdictions bounty hunters usually work for bail bond services and require a license. In many jurisdictions (still in the US) they have extraordinary powers to track down and apprehend people who have skipped bail.

Are there bounty hunters in the Honorverse? Given the diversity of planets in the Verge, I'd be very surprised if there weren't. I'd be just as surprised if they worked on any kind of interstellar basis, or had anything to do with interstellar piracy.

So bounty hunting could be a thing, but almost strictly on a local level?

JohnRoth wrote:That's my take on it. Now, it's quite possible that there are some interstellar bounty hunters, but on most civilized planets law enforcement does not issue rewards for criminals who have fled the planet. It's possible that private individuals may offer rewards-in fact you see them all the time in the form of "information leading to the arrest and conviction of xxx." If there are enough such offers from pissed-off plutocrats, it may well be possible for a few people to make a lucrative living from chasing the miscreants down, validly issued arrest warrant in hand.

They're much more likely to be private intelligence agents whose skill is mostly accessing data banks and shaking them down for interesting leads than the main characters in shows like "Have gun, will travel" or Janet Evonovich's Stephanie Plum novels.

Oh no. Not the Stephanie Plum novels. My sister's pot of tea.

Governments offer rewards for criminals no matter where they are if they are worth it. Remember the $25M offered for Bin Laden?

No one will receive the $25 million reward for the capture of Osama bin Laden, say U.S. officials, because the raid that killed the al Qaeda leader in Pakistan on May 2 was the result of electronic intelligence, not human informants.

cthia wrote:Governments offer rewards for criminals no matter where they are if they are worth it. Remember the $25M offered for Bin Laden?

No one will receive the $25 million reward for the capture of Osama bin Laden, say U.S. officials, because the raid that killed the al Qaeda leader in Pakistan on May 2 was the result of electronic intelligence, not human informants.

Conversely, however, bounty hunting is not allowed by the majority of modern governments; per Wikipedia, it's ilelgal pretty much everywhere except the US and the Phillipines.

Likewise AFAICT for rewards for capturing criminals.

That said, I could see bounty hunting in the more lawless areas of the Honorverse, where police/military forces are weak.

Eyal wrote:
Conversely, however, bounty hunting is not allowed by the majority of modern governments; per Wikipedia, it's ilelgal pretty much everywhere except the US and the Phillipines.

Likewise AFAICT for rewards for capturing criminals.

That said, I could see bounty hunting in the more lawless areas of the Honorverse, where police/military forces are weak.

There are actually two things here:
"Fugitive (bail absconders) recovery agents" who attempt to find and arrest individuals who have used the services of a bail bondsman and defaulted by leaving the jurisdiction or failing to appear when ordered (by the court or the bondsman) work for the bondsman, not the court. The bondsman would rather pay some smallish percentage of the bond to someone to find and return the fugitive then pay 100 per cent of the bond to the court.

"Reward for information leading to arrest and conviction of the 'Worst Person in the World'" (or Worlds, given an interstellar society) is the State putting up money (or other valuable consideration), often joined by private funds, for information that enables agents of the State to arrest a perpetrator, who may or may not technically be a fugitive, or to convict the accused at trial.

Both are called "Bounty Hunters" but they have different roles to play in life.

The old Western "Bounty Hunters" were more like "Private Inquiry Agents" or "Consulting Detectives" than Dog the Bounty Hunter.

Fox2! wrote:

Eyal wrote:
Conversely, however, bounty hunting is not allowed by the majority of modern governments; per Wikipedia, it's ilelgal pretty much everywhere except the US and the Phillipines.

Likewise AFAICT for rewards for capturing criminals.

That said, I could see bounty hunting in the more lawless areas of the Honorverse, where police/military forces are weak.

There are actually two things here:
"Fugitive (bail absconders) recovery agents" who attempt to find and arrest individuals who have used the services of a bail bondsman and defaulted by leaving the jurisdiction or failing to appear when ordered (by the court or the bondsman) work for the bondsman, not the court. The bondsman would rather pay some smallish percentage of the bond to someone to find and return the fugitive then pay 100 per cent of the bond to the court.

"Reward for information leading to arrest and conviction of the 'Worst Person in the World'" (or Worlds, given an interstellar society) is the State putting up money (or other valuable consideration), often joined by private funds, for information that enables agents of the State to arrest a perpetrator, who may or may not technically be a fugitive, or to convict the accused at trial.

Both are called "Bounty Hunters" but they have different roles to play in life.

The old Western "Bounty Hunters" were more like "Private Inquiry Agents" or "Consulting Detectives" than Dog the Bounty Hunter.

I should add that at times, only private funds are involved in the ''information leading to the arrest and conviction of" type of bounty.

So, Rednek, are you enjoying Dark Matter? Not the only forum all of a sudden having "wonder if bounty hunter".....

There probably are bounty hunters in HV

Relax wrote:So, Rednek, are you enjoying Dark Matter? Not the only forum all of a sudden having "wonder if bounty hunter".....

There probably are bounty hunters in HV

I honestly don't know what your talking about.

As Eyal says the whole bounty hunter concept seems to be US centric. In my country someone doing a citizen's arrest would want to be damn sure of his legality, and also sure of not harming their target in any way.
Definitely not officially encouraged.
There are official rewards posted for criminals, but always with the proviso of information brought to the relative authorities, amid warnings of do not approach. In a hypothetical scenario of a US bounty hunter discovering the whereabouts of their quarry in another country, they would have to work through the authorities, or risk being locked up themselves.

Daryl wrote:As Eyal says the whole bounty hunter concept seems to be US centric. In my country someone doing a citizen's arrest would want to be damn sure of his legality, and also sure of not harming their target in any way.
Definitely not officially encouraged.
There are official rewards posted for criminals, but always with the proviso of information brought to the relative authorities, amid warnings of do not approach. In a hypothetical scenario of a US bounty hunter discovering the whereabouts of their quarry in another country, they would have to work through the authorities, or risk being locked up themselves.

Sorta how it works here in the U.S. Bounty hunters must check in with local authorities when traveling from city to city and state to state or risk being arrested and or even shot in the middle of an operation.