Is “Minority Report” the future of crime?

The Department of PreCrime in the 2002 movie Minority Report was charged with finding and apprehending murderers BEFORE they commit the crime. Nifty, huh? If only it were that easy in real life. But is some version of this Steven Spielberg movie plot already taking place in Philadelphia?

Maybe.

The Philadelphia Police Department is experimenting with an advanced computing system that law enforcement officials believe just might be the Big Brother they are looking for when it comes to predicting who among us will be the next to commit a violent crime.

The system works by analyzing various statistics on the city’s 49,000 parolees. In a recent test, the computer spit out a list of several hundred. 45 out of every 100 the computer identified did go on to commit a homicide or attempted homicide within two years. While not a mind-boggling average, it was much higher than the 1 out of 100 in the general population of probationers and parolees.

Right now, this is probably not something to lay awake at night pondering but you might want it to rest on the periphery of your attention. See where this experiment leads the City of Brotherly Love. In the future, will our actions be predicted by a computer program? Let’s hope not. That sound you hear is that of the Founding Fathers rolling over in their graves.

The Holistic Survival Team
“Protecting the People, Places, and Profits you care about.”