The World of Witches

In the occult justice system the people are represented by two separate, yet equally important groups. The Bureau of Arcane Investigations, which investigates magic-related crime, and the Occult Corrective Services, which prosecutes and punishes the offenders. These are their stories.

Kestrel

The Setting
"The greatest threat America faces today is not her enemies abroad, but her enemies within--the witches who gain power from dark forces and seek to twist our nation to their own will. They must be stopped. And we will stop them."

-Franklin T. Roosevelt, 34th President of the United States

After centuries of disorganized efforts around the globe to combat witchcraft and its disturbing propensity for mayhem, lawbreaking and murder, America has finally proven to be the nation most successful in stomping out the occult.

On the eve of the second World War, then-president of the United States Franklin T. Roosevelt created a new cabinet position: the Secretary of Occult Defense. The first person to hold the office, A.R. Steckley, immediately created two brand-new agencies designed to deal with the burgeoning witch problem--the Bureau of Arcane Investigation, charged with investigating possible cases of witchcraft, and Occult Corrective Services, charged with imprisonment, rehabilitation and family services for witch-convicts.

Because witchcraft often runs in families, OCS is also charged with relocation of close relatives of those found to be witches.

The BAI and OCS work in tandem, often (but not always) in teams, and they are considered to have jurisdiction regardless of location, taking over investigations from local law enforcement or working with those departments. As such, they are often not well-liked among other law enforcement officials, who they can order about at will.

Some BAI-OCS employees work alone; others prefer partners or even teams, and they are given a great deal of latitude in this regard, provided they continue to get positive results.

Results aren't always easy to achieve. In the recent past, witches have caused hurricanes, blighted crops and caused plagues of cancer. One particularly powerful and violent individual simply erased an entire baseball stadium, along with the crowd inside.

Fortunately, there are tools to help the BAI-OCS. They use guns and badges, but they also possess some items known to nullify magic or grant temporary powers. Some have argued that this makes BAI-OCS nearly as bad as the witches they chase, but there are very few reports of BAI-OCS vaporizing people or flaying them alive, and training is stringent.

Witches themselves can be shot on sight, though some prefer to take them alive when possible.

Though there are rumors that department personnel are witches, BAI and OCS both have in-depth testing mechanisms and background checks in place to sniff out any witches who attempt to join, and all personnel must pass a yearly physical and psychological evaluation that includes tests for magic.

Rumors that people tainted with witchblood are not accepted into the BAI-OCS have been publicly denounced, as it is against federal laws to discriminate against people with witch relatives.

The BAI-OCS has strong ties with many religious organizations that share its mission of eliminating witchcraft.

Foremost among them is the Catholic Church, whose Inquisition has its own hierarchy of witchhunters, many of whom are nuns, as witchhunting is not a sacrament and does not need to be carried out by a priest. Exorcisms, which sometimes work on witches, are generally carried out by priests.