Editing Judge Dredd (section)

==Setting==
Dredd's first stories take place in the year 2099, 122 years after their publication date in 1977. His regular stories are generally set 122 years after their real-world publication date (unless otherwise stated as a flashback or prequel story), so that stories published in {{CURRENTYEAR}} are set in {{#expr:{{CURRENTYEAR}}+122}}.

The setting of ''Judge Dredd'' is a [[dystopian]] future Earth damaged by a series of international conflicts; much of the planet has become radioactive wasteland, and so populations have aggregated in enormous [[conurbation]]s known as 'mega-cities'.<ref>''2000 AD'' #4</ref> The story is centred on the [[Megalopolis (city type)|megalopolis]] of [[Mega-City One]], on the east coast of North America. Within Mega-City One, extensive automation (including intelligent robots) has rendered the majority of the population unemployed.<ref>''2000 AD'' #9</ref> As a consequence, the general population is prone to embracing any fashion or craze they encounter.<ref>''2000 AD'' #290</ref> Mega-City One is surrounded by the inhospitable "Cursed Earth",<ref>''2000 AD'' #4 and 61</ref> a radioactive desert populated by outlaws and mutants. Much of the remaining world's geography is somewhat vague, although other mega-cities are visited in the strip.

The majority of Mega-City One's population lives in gigantic towers known as [[City Block (Judge Dredd)|City Blocks]], each holding some 50,000 people.<ref>''2000 AD'' #117 and 118</ref> Each is named after some historical person or TV character, usually for comic effect. A minority live in "mopads" - an evolution of the mobile home, and constantly travel Mega-City One's extensive road network.  Mega-City One extends from Boston to [[Charlotte, North Carolina|Charlotte]]; but extended into Florida before the Apocalypse War laid waste to the southern sectors.<ref>''2000 AD'' #245–270</ref> At its height, the city contained a population of about 800 million; after the Apocalypse War, it was halved to 400 million.

===The Judge system===
{{Main|Mega-City One#Judges}}
Street Judges act as police, judge, jury, and executioner. Capital punishment in Mega-City One is rarely used,<ref>''2000 AD'' #261, 630, 1337, and ''Batman/Judge Dredd: Die Laughing'' #1-2 (1998)</ref> though deaths while [[resisting arrest]] are commonplace. Numerous writers have used the Judge System to satirize contemporary politics.

Judges, once appointed, can be broadly characterised as "Street Judges" (who patrol the city), and administrative (office-based) Judges. The Justice Department is responsible not only for law enforcement, but is also the government, since the United States was overthrown in 2070 following the [[Third World War]], which devastated much of America. The Judges are a ruling class, the ordinary citizens having no participation in government except at the municipal level. Dredd was once offered the job of Chief Judge, but he refused it.<ref>''2000 AD'' #108</ref>

The Judge System has spread world-wide, with various super-cities possessing similar methods of law enforcement. As such, this political model has become the most common form of government on Earth, with only a few small areas practicing civilian rule.