Jail and hospital
How you end up in the City Jail or St. Jude's Hospital, what you can still do inside, and every way to get out early.
Sooner or later every crook in Vesper City sees the inside of a cell or a hospital ward. Here's how it works.
How you get there
- Jail: a failed crime that ends with you caught, a jailbreak that goes wrong, or a failed attempt to break someone else out.
- Hospital: a failed crime that turns violent (it also halves your health), or losing a fight against a player or a rival.
More on both in Crimes and Fights.
Every stay has a timer; when it runs out you are free. Heat makes crime sentences longer, and from level 10 the police watch remembers your recent arrests: each one makes the next sentence longer, especially for the same crime. The Crimes page shows how much.
While you're inside
Jail and hospital lock most of the game. Places you would have to go to are closed: crimes, attacks, rivals, travel, the bank, the markets, the gym and jobs. Your own properties stay open to look at, but you can't change anything.
Still open: your profile, inventory, mail, friends, the newspaper, your gang's pages and the Gold Store. In jail you can train in the jail gym and sew mailbags for a little money. In hospital you can use healing items: each one takes 10 minutes off your stay.
When a jail stay is over, the time inside teaches you a little Street Smarts, paid next time you visit the Crimes page.
Getting out of jail early
Open City → Jail:
- Bribe the judge: paid in cash. The price drops as your sentence runs down and rises with your level. From level 10, each extra bribe within a day costs more, you get at most 3 a day, and with a bad enough police record the judge refuses.
- Try a jailbreak: from level 5, one try per stay, costing 5 nerve. Dexterity helps, and so does a long stay: every 20 minutes you still have to serve add 1% to your chance (at most 10% in all), so a jailbreak pays on a long sentence and a short one is usually worth waiting out. Caught means 10 more minutes and a mark on your police record; out means you're on the run, and any arrest meanwhile brings a longer sentence.
- Friends: choose "Let friends help" and others can pay your bribe or try to bust you out.
Free players from level 5 can Bust out a prisoner for 5 nerve (gang-mates get a bonus) or Pay their bribe. A failed breakout puts you in a cell yourself.
Getting out early: the Courthouse
The Courthouse in Capitol Hill opens from level 20. From the jail page you can:
- Hire a lawyer: cuts 50% off the time you have left, once per stay. The price grows with the minutes left and with your level.
- Bribe Judge Pike: an envelope, cash only (never Gold). 70% of the time you walk free; otherwise he adds 25% to your sentence. He takes one envelope every 24 hours and won't touch burglary cases. Unlike the clerk's bribe above, the judge gambles with anyone, whatever their record.
Clearing your record is done in person: stand in Capitol Hill and ask Judge Pike to lose a file, and one arrest comes off your police record, so your next sentence is lighter. Each file costs a share of a day's income at your level.
Leaving hospital early
Open City → Hospital and Pay a private doctor: you leave at once, patched up to at least 25% of your health (if you were already healthier, you keep it). The price drops as you recover and rises with your level.
Shorter stays
Some bonuses cut your time inside, such as donator status or living in certain districts. All the cuts together never take off more than 35% of a jail stay or 35% of a hospital stay.
Your mugshot
While you are in jail you can make The Mugshot, a picture to share: your portrait on the police board, your charge, your sentence and a BUSTED stamp. Press Take my mugshot on the jail page (in the Graphical view, the mugshot board in your cell). It comes in two sizes, wide for X and Discord and tall for TikTok and stories, and only you can open it. Download it or share it from your phone: the game never posts it for you. It shows your game name and portrait, never money and never anyone else's name; if you keep your name out of the paper, the placard leaves your name off. See The Evening Racket for the front-page card.
Tips
- Waiting costs nothing: the bribe and doctor prices shrink as the clock runs.
- Keep a healing item in your inventory for hospital stays.
- A break between arrests lets your police record cool off.