Arresting & Warrants

Arresting is the core mechanic of Civil Protection. You mark players as wanted, obtain warrants to search bases, and use your arrest stick to put criminals in jail. Getting this right is the difference between an effective officer and one who causes more trouble than they prevent.

Wanting Players

To mark a player as wanted, aim at them and use your arrest stick. This opens a prompt to set the reason and confirm the want. Once wanted, the player is flagged for arrest — other CP can see the status and SWAT will be assigned as their bounty hunter. You can also remove a wanted status by aiming at the player and using the stick again.

The arrest stick has a cooldown of 2.5 seconds between uses. If you have the Arrest Range skill unlocked from your skill tree, this range is increased.

Only want players for legitimate reasons. Randomly wanting players without cause is considered abuse of power and is a punishable offence under server rules.

Making an Arrest

Once a player is wanted, walk up to them and use the arrest stick to begin the arrest. The player must be within range and must not be moving faster than the arrest speed threshold — if they run, they can resist the arrest. Successfully arresting a player sends them to jail for 120 seconds. If the player had a bounty, you receive 50% of the bounty payout immediately.

If you have the Arrest Money skill unlocked, you earn an additional $500 per arrest on top of any bounty reward, as long as the player was wanted at the time of arrest.

Jail

Arrested players are sent to jail for 120 seconds. If they die while jailed, they respawn inside the jail rather than back at their normal spawn. Jailed players can be bailed out by other players — see the Bail section below.

Bail

Another player can pay bail to release a jailed person early. The standard bail price is $75,000. To bail someone out, approach the bail NPC and interact with it. You cannot bail yourself out. If the bailed player is in the same gang as you, a gang-level discount may apply to reduce the cost.

As a CP officer, you have no control over bail once a player is jailed — it is handled between the prisoner and whoever pays. Focus on keeping players off the streets long enough for bail to cost them.

Search Warrants

Search warrants are issued by the Mayor and allow CP to enter and search a player's base or property. A warrant lasts 30 seconds from the moment it is issued. During that window, CP can legally enter the target's base to search for contraband. Once the warrant expires, you are no longer authorised to be inside — leaving immediately is expected.

Warrants must be requested through the Mayor. The Mayor controls who gets warranted and when — coordinate with them on voice or in-game chat to get warrants issued quickly during active raids.

Entering a base without a valid warrant is illegal under server rules regardless of what you suspect is inside. Always have a warrant before breaching.

Reduce Arrest Time Skill

The Less Arrest Time skill, available in the CP skill tree, reduces the base 120-second jail duration for players you arrest. If you are processing high volumes of arrests, this can help keep things moving — though it also means criminals get back on the street sooner.