Take a look at the "tractor beam" discussion. The cop could use a modified CD that would "freeze" both the smuggler and his own ship, so he has to call in another cop. Neither ship could move or use their weapons until the smuggler paid the fine, or one of the ships is destroyed by another player. I think this would be pretty balanced, if the technology were only available to House police and pirate freighters, and I'm pretty sure all the necessary files are already in vanilla freelancer, such as turning off weapons when you go into cruise mode.
Something needs to be done so that a player cant just run away instead of RPing. Anyway, check the other discussion, these two threads have a lot in common.
