Precrime
Precrime is a system that has replaced the previous system of discovering a crime and its perpetrator after it had been committed, with imprisonment before the crime takes place to prevent it happening.
How the system works
The system of predicting the future in reports is carried out by three mutants, called 'precogs', all of whom have the capacity to see up to two weeks into the future. Precogs are created by identifying the talent within a "subject" and cultivating it in a government-operated training. The precogs sit in a room which is perpetually in half-darkness, constantly talking nonsense to themselves that is incoherent until it is analysed by a computer into predictions of the future. This information is assembled by the computer into the form of symbols before being transcribed onto conventional punchcards which are ejected into various coded slots. When cards are produced, they appear simultaneously at Precrime and the Army GHQ, in order to prevent corruption. The precogs are kept in rigid position by metal bands, clamps and wiring, which keep them attached to special high-backed chairs. Their physical needs are taken care of automatically and it is said that they have no spiritual needs.
A minority report
The system of three precogs finds its genesis in the computers of the middle decades of the 21st Century. The results of a computer are checked by feeding the data to a second computer of identical design but two computers are not sufficient. If each computer arrived at a different answer it is impossible to tell a priori which is correct. The solution, based on a careful study of statistical method, is to utilize a third computer to check the results of the first two. In this manner, a so-called majority report is obtained. It can be assumed that the agreement of two out of three computers indicates which of the alternative results is accurate — it would not be likely that two computers would arrive at identically incorrect solutions. It is much more common to obtain a collaborative majority report of two precogs, plus a minority report of some slight variation, usually with reference to time and place, from the third mutant. This is explained by the theory of multiple-futures. If only one time-path existed, precognitive information would be of no importance since no possibility would exist, in possessing this information, of altering the future.
Would it be ethical to replace an established system of punishing offenders for crimes they have committed, with a system that imprisons future offenders before they have committed their crime?
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It would depend, if their is a chance of failure then the system should be banned straight away. Innocent people in jail is never a good idea.
If there is no chance of failure however, and the people could be stopped from committing crimes like for instance murder and rape then yes I would say it is a good idea. I really don't like the idea, but it can save people and it can stop some of the most terrible things you can imagine. I think it would be worth it.
If the system proved to be, at the very least, as efficient as our current system, then I would welcome it. If nothing else, it would be a system based on finding the truth, rather than who poses the best argument.
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No because you are not punishing a crime. You are making an absolute judgement on the premise that an action may or may not occur, especially in the case where the action is non-existant.
I feel it is far worse for an innocent person to be punished than for a guilty person to be free.
We can only punish crimes. What is there to punish if nothing happened.
Well I can see that creating something like this will raise a lot of philosophical questions. People never needed to think in things like these because there were no practical applications, so the current concept of truth and innocence worked well.
We shouldn´t forget that the current ideas opf truth and innocence were just defined that way and there is no magic reason making them true, but I think we should only punish something, if that actually happened, even if it would happen in any way. I mean if someone was about to commit a crime and you stopped that person, then that person did not comitt a crime and that changes a lot. We cannot treat this person like a criminal.
A system like this should only work to prevent crimes but that shouldn´t be used to judge, it shoudn´t have any legal value. Even in that way there will be problems because people will look a person supposed to have commited a crime in a bad way. Like in the medieval times if some one said you had the devil inside or something.
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Last edited by Atlantis001 on Apr 10th, 2007 at 02:00 AM
If the system is flawless, meaning the future always plays out as it is predicted and the system can not be tampered with then I think it's a good system. However if there is even the smallest chance of the system being corrupted or being wrong it shouldn't be used at all.
The principle that everyone is innocent until proven guilty is quite important to me. As well as the principle that innocent people shouldn't be in prison.
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The person is Innocent until they actually do something wrong. To throw a person in prison before they commit any crime is to punish an Innocent Person. That's wrong no matter how you look at it.
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I do understand how ethically distressing it sounds, but that individual unless stopped would've murdered another person. Would it be more preferable to stop the foreseen murder and then let the would-be-murderer go?
I suppose the answer to your question would be that he is imprisoned for us having hard proof that he indeed would have committed a murder.
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If it's a psychopathic killer preventing him from doing it again.
I don't believe in the death penalty and it doesn't have to be perpetual sentence either. Ideally it would be a case-by-case system, haven't really given it great deal of thought though. But I think it could work.
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You do realize how silly that is right? You said "again" but he never did it. You wouldn't try to give him sort of counseling? He ain't done shit yet. That could get FAR TOO CORRUPT QUICKLY.
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I should've said "attempting". Not particularly hard to comprehend my meaning.
Did I say the only alternative for him would be life in prison? Nope did not. It could get corrupt far too quickly? It would certainly meet quite a few difficulties but so does our current system.
The idea of having tangible proof of a would-be murder and sitting on it would be much less preferable, is there another solution I'm not seeing? Stopping the murder then let the man go? Come on.
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You need to work on syntax. If I try to go by "what you mean" instead of "what you said" stuff gets really weird. Say what you mean. This is not the time to use creative license.
I don't trust people to use a system like that properly. The movie itself seems to hint at the very thing I would get @ anyway.
You mention alternative "punishment" but don't say what it is. Mind giving a few examples? I don't know what you mean. I do not know an applicable punishment for something I was about to do.
If you are stopped from committing a murder just seconds before you commit it you could still be charged with attempted murder. You were just stopped by the cops before you could succeed.
Letting somebody go just because you stopped them before it happened isn't good enough, it let's people try and try time after time again. In some cases like passion killing you could let the person go, preferably with some kind of professional help. But if that was not the case, or if somebody would be stopped more then once letting them go time after time again is just a waste of time and money.
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Apr 9th, 2007 04:01 PM
