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Sunday 12 October 2008

The nightmare of ‘pre-crime’

The nightmare of ‘pre-crime’ is already with us

Police can now act against people who have done nothing

Crime prevention has, of course, always been a legitimate avenue of police procedure, but the shift here is that while it traditionally relied upon rationally collecting and correlating evidence of a potential misdemeanour, now those investigated for criminal activity are pursued on the basis of gossip, and it is needlessly vindictive. The reformed, reckless town centre boozer, having mended his ways, is effectively being punished for a crime he possibly may never commit. There is nothing necessarily wrong with keeping intelligence on individuals, but there is something creepy about ‘picking up’ a criminal, not because you have evidence that he is about to commit a crime, but because he is acting, in the opinion of some, ‘weird’. As Simon Davies, director of Privacy International, told the Times recently: ‘It is quite right that the police should keep intelligence on suspected criminals, but it is obscene to suggest there should be a “Crime Idol” list of those who might commit an offence.’

Some of those who cite Orwell in their dire forebodings often point out that ‘thought-crime’ is now a reality. Since the Macpherson report, one of the definitions of a racist attack is that the victim perceived the perpetrator to be racially motivated: namely, what you are (adjudged) to have been thinking carries extra punishment. Most of those who invoke Orwell, however, refer principally to the fact that we are the most spied-up nation on the planet, what with more than 4.2 million CCTV cameras in operation in the UK. But Big Brother is no longer merely watching us, he will soon be apprehending us for things we are about to do. Trials using ‘smart CCTVs’ were first carried out in London’s Liverpool Street station in 2003. The new software, called the Intelligent Pedestrian Surveillance system, draws attention to loiterers or those whose body movement suggest intention to commit crime. Although the trial was abandoned after too many false alarms, plans are still afoot to have a similar system working on the London Underground network.

More articles from: Patrick West | this section

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