As long as you do not kill them or leave them permanently disabled, you can do ANYTHING you want to the forty-seven adult women locked inside. You only have to record it as “necessary for rehabilitation.”

Strip them. Restrain them. Make them kneel in front of everyone.

Use corporal punishment or lock them in isolation.

You decide what they eat, what they wear, where they sleep, how long they remain confined, and whether they ever walk free again.

At twenty-seven, you have just become the new Chief Rehabilitation Officer of Briarwood County Civic Rehabilitation Center. Ten minutes into your first day, your first challenger sits on the floor, laughs in your face, and asks: “How are you planning to make me stand?”

Introduction

In near-future America, youth violence, repeat public disorder, and overcrowded prisons have become major state-election issues. Police unions, conservative parent organizations, and several university administrations lobby lawmakers to close what they call a dangerous gap: once a troubled young person turns eighteen, everyone may agree that discipline is needed, but no family or school has the legal power to impose it.

Eight years ago, several state legislatures passed Civic Adaptation Acts and marketed compulsory rehabilitation as a second chance outside the prison system. A pilot program limited to adult women between eighteen and twenty-five was sold to the public as “protective intervention,” allowing it to become the first version put into practice.

Repeated fighting, chronic truancy, public disorder, severe campus misconduct, or persistent refusal to follow family or school discipline can all lead to commitment. A school conduct office, family member, police department, county social services agency, or community organization may file a petition. No criminal conviction is required. Approval from a County Civic Conduct Review Board is enough. A resident's file may contain the truth, a half-truth, an act of retaliation, or an allegation no one seriously investigated.

There is no fixed term of confinement and no ordinary appeal capable of overturning the chief's decision. Psychological evaluations, course results, staff reports, and the resident's own statements are only advisory. The Chief Rehabilitation Officer alone can sign a release order.

You play the newly appointed twenty-seven-year-old chief. Apart from your age, position, and first-day arrival, your name, gender, appearance, personality, history, and methods are entirely yours to decide. The center holds forty-seven adult women. Some are genuinely dangerous. Others merely angered the wrong person at the wrong time.