''Pre-crime'' (or ''precrime'') is the idea that the occurrence of a crime can be anticipated before it happens. The term was coined by science fiction author
Philip K. Dick, and is increasingly used in academic literature to describe and criticise the tendency in
criminal justice
Criminal justice is the delivery of justice to those who have been accused of committing crimes. The criminal justice system is a series of government agencies and institutions. Goals include the Rehabilitation (penology), rehabilitation of o ...
systems to focus on crimes not yet committed. Precrime intervenes to punish, disrupt, incapacitate or restrict those deemed to embody future crime threats. The term ''precrime'' embodies a
temporal paradox
A temporal paradox, time paradox, or time travel paradox is a paradox, an apparent contradiction, or logical contradiction associated with the idea of time and time travel. The notion of time travel to the future complies with current understanding ...
, suggesting both that a crime has not yet occurred and that it is a
foregone conclusion
''Foregone'' is the upcoming fourteenth studio album by Swedish heavy metal band In Flames. The album is set to be released on 10 February 2023 through Nuclear Blast and was produced by Howard Benson. It is the first album by the band to feature ...
.
Origins of the concept
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitar ...
introduced a similar concept in his 1949 novel ''
Nineteen Eighty-Four
''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (also stylised as ''1984'') is a dystopian social science fiction novel and cautionary tale written by the English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final ...
'' using the term ''
thoughtcrime
Thoughtcrime is a word coined by George Orwell in his 1949 dystopian novel ''Nineteen Eighty-Four''. It describes a person's politically unorthodox thoughts, such as beliefs and doubts that contradict the tenets of Ingsoc (English Socialism) ...
'' to describe illegal thoughts which held banned opinions about the ruling government or intentions to act against it. A large part of how it differs from precrime is in its absolute prohibition of anti-authority ideas and emotions, regardless of the consideration of any physical revolutionary acts. However, Orwell was describing behaviour he saw in governments of his day as well as extrapolating on that behaviour, and so his ideas were themselves rooted in real political history and current events.
In Philip K. Dick's 1956
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
short story "
The Minority Report
"The Minority Report" is a 1956 science fiction novella by American writer Philip K. Dick, first published in ''Fantastic Universe''. In a future society, three mutants foresee all crime before it occurs. Plugged into a great machine, these " p ...
", ''Precrime'' is the name of a criminal justice agency, the task of which is to identify and eliminate persons who will commit crimes in the future. The agency’s work is based on the existence of "precog mutants", a trio of "vegetable-like" humans whose "every incoherent utterance" is analyzed by a
punch card
A punched card (also punch card or punched-card) is a piece of stiff paper that holds digital data represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. Punched cards were once common in data processing applications or to di ...
computer. As Anderton, the chief of the Precrime agency, explains the advantages of this procedure: "in our society we have no major crimes ... but we do have a detention camp full of would-be criminals". He cautions about the basic legal drawback to precrime methodology: "We’re taking in individuals who have broken no law."
The concept was brought to wider public attention by
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg (; born December 18, 1946) is an American director, writer, and producer. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director of all time. Spie ...
's film ''
Minority Report
Minority Report may refer to:
* Minority report (Poor Law), published by the UK Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress 1905–09
* "Minority Report", a 1949 science fiction short story by Theodore Sturgeon
* "The Minority Report ...
'', loosely adapted from the story. The Japanese cyberpunk anime television series ''
Psycho-Pass
''Psycho-Pass'' (stylized as ''PSYCHO-PASS'') is a Japanese cyberpunk psychological thriller anime television series produced by Production I.G. It was co-directed by Naoyoshi Shiotani and Katsuyuki Motohiro and written by Gen Urobuchi, ...
'' has a similar concept.
In criminological theory
Precrime in criminology dates back to the positivist school in the late 19th century, especially to
Cesare Lombroso
Cesare Lombroso (, also ; ; born Ezechia Marco Lombroso; 6 November 1835 – 19 October 1909) was an Italian criminologist, phrenologist, physician, and founder of the Italian School of Positivist Criminology. Lombroso rejected the establis ...
's idea that there are "born criminals", who can be recognized, even before they have committed any crime, on the basis of certain physical characteristics. Biological, psychological and sociological forms of criminological positivisms informed criminal policy in the early 20th century. For born criminals, criminal psychopaths and dangerous habitual offenders eliminatory penalties (capital punishment, indefinite confinement, castration etc.) were seen as appropriate. Similar ideas were advocated by the Social Defense movement and, more recently, by what is seen and criticized as an emerging "new criminology" (Feeley &
Simon
Simon may refer to:
People
* Simon (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name Simon
* Simon (surname), including a list of people with the surname Simon
* Eugène Simon, French naturalist and the genus ...
1992) or "
actuary justice" (Feeley & Simon 1994). The new "precrime" or "security society" requires a radically new criminology.
Testing for pre-delinquency
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
's psychiatrist,
Arnold Hutschnecker, suggested, in a memorandum to the then president, to run mass tests of "pre-delinquency" and put those juveniles in "camps". Hutschnecker, a refugee from Nazi Germany and a vocal critic of Hitler at the time of his exodus,
has rejected the interpretation of the memorandum that he advocated concentration camps:
In criminal justice practice
The frontline of a modern criminal justice system is increasingly preoccupied with anticipating threats, and is the antithesis of the traditional criminal justice system's focus on past crimes. Traditionally,
criminal justice
Criminal justice is the delivery of justice to those who have been accused of committing crimes. The criminal justice system is a series of government agencies and institutions. Goals include the Rehabilitation (penology), rehabilitation of o ...
and punishment presuppose
evidence of a crime being committed. This time-honored principle is violated once punishment is meted out "for crimes never committed". Today, a clear example of this trend is "nachträgliche Sicherungsverwahrung" (retrospective security detention), which became an option in German criminal law in 2004. This "measure of security" can be decided upon at the end of a prison sentence on a purely
prognostic
Prognosis (Greek: πρόγνωσις "fore-knowing, foreseeing") is a medical term for predicting the likely or expected development of a disease, including whether the signs and symptoms will improve or worsen (and how quickly) or remain stable ...
basis. In France, a similarly retrospective measure was introduced in 2008 as "rétention de sûreté" (security detention). The German measure was viewed as violating the
European Convention on Human Rights
The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR; formally the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms) is an international convention to protect human rights and political freedoms in Europe. Drafted in 1950 by t ...
by the
European Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR or ECtHR), also known as the Strasbourg Court, is an international court of the Council of Europe which interprets the European Convention on Human Rights. The court hears applications alleging that a ...
in 2009. It was, however, never completely abolished in Germany and new legislation is envisaged to continue this practice under the new name "Therapieunterbringung" (detention for therapy).. A similar provision for indefinite
administrative detention
Administrative detention is arrest and detention of individuals by the state without trial. A number of jurisdictions claim that it is done for security reasons. Many countries claim to use administrative detention as a means to combat terrorism ...
was found in
Finnish law The law of Finland is based on the civil law tradition, consisting mostly of statutory law promulgated by the Parliament of Finland. The constitution of Finland, originally approved in 1919 and rewritten in 2000, has supreme authority and sets the ...
, but it was not enforced after the mid-1970s. Precrime is most obvious and advanced in the context of counter-terrorism, though it is argued that, far from countering terrorism, precrime produces the futures it purports to prevent.
In 2020, the
Tampa Bay Times
The ''Tampa Bay Times'', previously named the ''St. Petersburg Times'' until 2011, is an American newspaper published in St. Petersburg, Florida, United States. It has won fourteen Pulitzer Prizes since 1964, and in 2009, won two in a single y ...
compared the
Pasco County Sheriff's Office
The Pasco County Sheriff's Office (PSO) is the law enforcement agency responsible for Pasco County, Florida. It is the largest law enforcement agency within the county, and serves as a full service law enforcement and detention agency for the over ...
precrime detection program to the film ''
Minority Report
Minority Report may refer to:
* Minority report (Poor Law), published by the UK Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress 1905–09
* "Minority Report", a 1949 science fiction short story by Theodore Sturgeon
* "The Minority Report ...
'', citing pervasive monitoring of suspects and repeated visits to their homes, schools and places of employment.
Current techniques
Specialist software now exists for crime-prediction by analysing data.
This type of software has allowed law enforcement agencies to form predictions about criminal behavior and identify potential criminal hotspots based on crime data.
However, crime prediction software has also faced heavy criticism from academics, privacy, and civil liberties groups due to concerns about the lack of evidence proving the technology’s reliability and accuracy.
Another criticism of crime prediction software is that crime prediction algorithms often use racially skewed data in their analysis. This can potentially lead law enforcement agencies to make decisions and predictions that unfairly target and label minority communities as at risk for criminal activity.
A widely used criminal risk assessment tool called the
, or COMPAS, has been used by police and judges to predict the risk of recidivism amongst more than 1 million offenders since its development in 1998. The software predicts the likelihood that a convicted criminal will reoffend within two years based upon data including 137 of the individuals physical features and past criminal records.
A study published in ''Science Advances'' by two researchers found that groups of randomly chosen people could predict whether a past criminal would be convicted of a future crime with about 67 percent accuracy, a rate that was extremely similar to COMPAS.
Although COMPAS does not explicitly collect data regarding race, a study testing its accuracy on more than 7000 individuals arrested in
Broward County, Florida
Broward County ( , ) is a county in the southeastern part of Florida, located in the Miami metropolitan area. It is Florida's second-most populous county after Miami-Dade County and the 17th-most populous in the United States, with over 1.94 m ...
showed substantial racial disparities in the software’s predictions.
The results of the study showed that Black defendants who did not reoffend after their sentence were incorrectly predicted by COMPAS software to recidivate at a rate of 44.9%, as opposed to white defendants who were incorrectly predicted to reoffend at a rate of 23.5%. In addition, white defendants were incorrectly predicted to not be at risk of recidivism at a rate of 47.7%, as opposed to their Black counterparts who were incorrectly predicted to not reoffend at a rate of 28%. The study concluded that the COMPAS software appeared to overpredict recidivism risk towards Black individuals while underpredicting recidivism risk towards their white counterparts.
See also
*
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives fictional sting operations
* ''
Habeas corpus
''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, t ...
''
*
Incapacitation (penology)
Incapacitation in the context of criminal sentencing philosophy is one of the functions of punishment. It involves capital punishment, sending an offender to prison, or possibly restricting their freedom in the community, to protect society and ...
*
Predictive policing
Predictive policing is the usage of mathematics, predictive analytics, and other analytical techniques in law enforcement to identify potential criminal activity. A report published by the RAND Corporation identified four general categories predic ...
*
Presumption of guilt
A presumption of guilt is any presumption within the criminal justice system that a person is guilty of a crime, for example a presumption that a suspect is guilty unless or until proven to be innocent.
Such a presumption may legitimately aris ...
*
Preventive detention
Preventive detention is an imprisonment that is putatively justified for non-punitive purposes, most often to prevent (further) criminal acts.
Types of preventive detention
There is no universally agreed definition of preventive detention, and mu ...
*
Preventive state
*
Thoughtcrime
Thoughtcrime is a word coined by George Orwell in his 1949 dystopian novel ''Nineteen Eighty-Four''. It describes a person's politically unorthodox thoughts, such as beliefs and doubts that contradict the tenets of Ingsoc (English Socialism) ...
*
Total Information Awareness
Total Information Awareness (TIA) was a mass detection program by the United States Information Awareness Office. It operated under this title from February to May 2003 before being renamed Terrorism Information Awareness.
Based on the concep ...
Notes
References
* Anttila, Inkeri (1975), Incarceration for Crimes never Committed, Helsinki.
* Dick, Philip K. (2002), "Minority Report", In: ''Minority Report'', London, 1-43. See
The Minority Report
"The Minority Report" is a 1956 science fiction novella by American writer Philip K. Dick, first published in ''Fantastic Universe''. In a future society, three mutants foresee all crime before it occurs. Plugged into a great machine, these " p ...
* Feeley, Malcolm/Simon, Jonathan (1992), "The new penology: notes on the emerging strategy of corrections and its implications" In. ''Criminology'', vol. 30, 449-74
* Feeley, Malcolm/Simon, Jonathan (1994): "Actuarial Justice: the emerging new criminal law". In: David Nelken (ed.) ''The Futures of Criminology'', London.
* Feest, Johannes (2015), "Abolition in the times of pre-crime. A view from Germany". In: Thomas Mathiesen, The Politics of Abolition Revisited. Milton Park & New York.
* Fitzgibbon, D.W. (2004), ''Pre-emptive Criminalization; Risk Control and Alternative Futures''. London.
* Hutschnecker, Arnold (1988), Letter to the Editor (Nixon-Era Plan for Children didn’t include Concentration Camps), ''New York Times'', 15.10.1988.
*
*
* Zedner, Lucia (2014), "Preventive Detention of the Dangerous". In: Andrew Ashworth/Luica Zedner/Patrick Tomlin (eds.) ''Prevention and the limits of the Criminal Law''. Oxford University Press, 144-170.
*
* Zedner, Lucia (2009), Security. London, 72 ff.
* Zedner, Lucia (2007), "Pre-crime and post-criminology?". In: ''Theoretical Criminology'', vol. 11, no. 2, 261–281.
{{Law
Criminal law
Criminology
Prevention