Ultra long term incarceration

Ultra long term incarceration, often known by the acronym ULTI and commonly referred to as an immortal sentence was a penalty used by the Averte Statum to punish the most serious offenders, including mass murderers, terrorists and especially torturers and torture-murderers, whom Demanarch and other Averte Statum leaders particularly despised.

Ultra long term incarceration involved the passing of a prison sentence in excess of 100 years in length, and the use of life extension technology such as gene therapy, telomere regeneration, radical absorption, organ replacement and neuroregeneration to prolong the life of the inmate to ensure they served their full sentence (i.e. preventing them from dying of old age beforehand).

It was considered an appropriate punishment for the most serious criminals, and an effective deterrent as well. From year zero to 255 AU, there were multiple attempts to remove ultra long term incarceration from the penal code, with opponents viewing it as the ultimate cruel and unusual punishment, surpassing even the most barbaric execution techniques used in the Old World. In 200 AU, mind uploading was first used to store a backup of inmates minds, condemning any who succeeded in killing themselves to be "brought back to life" and kept in prison.

In 255 AU, Edward Kinnard (who had been imprisoned for 275 years since 20 BU for his involvement in the Meccan Genocide and various torture murders) successfully committed suicide after his allies destroyed the site where his mind had been uploaded. After this incident, the penal code was reformed and ultra long term incarceration was removed from it (replaced by capital punishment) with the maximum length of a prison sentence reduced to 80 years.