‘Pre-crime’
framing
The Conservative governments extended New Labour’s many measures of policing of the non-criminal. Policy areas of anti-terrorism, serious youth violence and gang activity have all extended the policing of normal life, with children being one of the groups most impacted.
“For recipients, the imposition of an Order can constitute a significant interference with their lives, often without any finding of criminal wrongdoing.”
“…the political solutions we need are neglected and instead we get a rationale for surveillance that leads to suspicion falling upon thousands of law-abiding individuals. The “pre-criminal space” is really the “non-criminal space.”
“We argue that pre-crime changes the relationship between individuals and between the state and individuals, reinforcing divisions in society and granting states impunity for coercive interventions in people’s lives, however harmful or unjust.”
Professors Jude McCulloch and Dean Wilson
Pre-crime, pre-emption, precaution and the future (2015)
Grime is not a crime
In common with other popular culture – films, television, video games – violence features heavily in rap music. However unlike other mediums the depictions of violence in rap are taken literally with police forces searching through digital and social media.
Prosecuting Rap, a University of Manchester project, documents how this is in turn used by prosecutors, and how children and young people are tried as adults for murder under Joint Enterprise with lyrics and video clips used to construct a narrative of gang membership.
“It is the bleak overall conditions that must be tackled – not the art that young people make in response to them.”
Art Not Evidence
Mission Statement, website
Freedom of expression
“Rap music, including the drill sub-genre, is one of the most popular forms of music across the country, and a significant cultural force…despite being known for its storytelling, symbolism, figurative language, and hyperbole, police and prosecutors invite judge and jury to take rap music literally, as direct evidence of criminal intent or behaviour.”
Art Not Evidence
Mission Statement, website
“…there are contradictory perceptions of rap-based music genres. On the one hand, it is used by practitioners as a medium to engage with young people and is encouraged as a coping strategy, yet, on the other hand, when young people express themselves through rap music independently, they face scrutiny and persecution within the criminal justice system.”
Beth Hall, Dr Roxanne Khan and Dr Mike Eslea
Criminalising Black Trauma: Grime and Drill Lyrics as a Form of Ethnographic Data to Understand “Gangs” and Serious Youth Violence (2023)
“People involved in the scene have been a suppressed group for a long time, although at the same time they are more outspoken. I think there has been a massive shift with the development of technology and social media that allows artists to speak out. They found a voice, so they utilise platforms”
Lauren (GRM Daily) quoted by Jessica Perera
Race and Class: The Politics of Generation Grime (2018)
Used as evidence in court
“Racial prejudice towards rap music and artists then continues in court proceedings and the presentation of lyrics and videos as evidence of intention, motivation, bad character, and gang association is almost exclusive to Black boys and men on trial.”
Beth Hall, Dr Roxanne Khan and Dr Mike Eslea
Criminalising Black Trauma: Grime and Drill Lyrics as a Form of Ethnographic Data to Understand “Gangs” and Serious Youth Violence (2023)
“’…‘joint enterprise’, a legal doctrine that turns the British justice system on its head. One that assumes guilt before innocence and rests on the premise that any interaction with the primary culprit or culprits could potentially constitute ‘assisting or encouraging’ the crime – leading to guilt by association.”
“There are ten boys who lost a friend who meant different things to each of them. Now, their grief, their interests and their friendships or school connections are being used to construct them as ‘gang’ affiliated.”
Kids of Colour
Statement on Trial in Manchester
“In the last three years alone, at least 240 people have had their fate in court decided, at least in part, by their taste in music.”
Art Not Evidence
Mission Statement, website
Policing of relationships
Safeguarding to justify mapping of friendships
Processes including mapping of friendships and relationships and the sharing of information about this is sometimes justified as part of safeguarding children, which gives greater powers. However within a pre-crime framework this then becomes reason for police investigations, punitive measures from different services and even criminal convictions. Children can find themselves on gang lists based on where they live or where they go to schools. With the wide data sharing of flags rather than details children can suffer deeply negative consequences based on little to no evidence.
“Mapping is used to understand associations between young people as a mechanism for identifying risk. However, this process of association can itself pose risks to young people.”
“The ‘dangerousness’ of this process of association for young people is clear: 37% of individuals in prison for Joint Enterprise offences are young Black men implicated in offences they have not committed through loose connections to a person, or location in which an incident happened.”
“…this stigma of suspicion or guilt can follow individuals through their interaction with a wide range of local services, including Jobcentres, housing associations and schools. These services may not have enough context to judge the original intelligence, or the degree of a young person’s alleged ‘gang association’.”
Amnesty International
Trapped in the Matrix: Secrecy, stigma and bias in the Met’s Gang Database (2018)
Criminalising childhood
Behaviour orders cover a wide number of different areas, some include what are already criminal offences. Others notably can include things which children do which are not in any way criminal, but which might be annoying, such as playing in the street or hanging round in groups. Not only does the impact on children seem to fail to take into account any aims to support their welfare or consider their best interests, but the orders seek to curtail areas which are covered by rights, including the right to play and the freedom of assembly. There have been significant reductions in the number of playgrounds and youth clubs, as well as the funding for youth workers, at the same time as increase in the numbers of cars has meant residential streets are seen mainly as for cars not kids.
“…the one to give rise to the most human rights concerns, is the AntiSocial Behaviour Order – the ASBO….Particular concerns arise in respect of the application of ASBOs to children…It is not because a child is causing inconvenience that he should be brought to the portal of the criminal justice system.”
“Everyday teenage activities– from skateboarding to ball games – risk attracting an injunction under this new law. Yet play, youth and other services are being cut across the country.”
Dr Hilary Emery, National Children’s Bureau; Penelope Gibbs, Standing Committee for Youth Justice; Dr Maggie Atkinson, Children’s Commissioner for England; Matthew Reed, Children’s Society; Chris Nevis, Play England; Shauneen Lambe, Just for Kids Law
Guardian Letters: Children will be punished simply for being children (2013)
“I think we are too ready as a society to label what looks like growing up to me as antisocial behaviour.”
Jacqui Cheer (in 2013 chief constable of Cleveland Police and the Association of Chief Police Officers’ lead on children and young people) quoted by Mark Wilding
VICE The Age of the ASBO: How Britain Became a Police State. (2017)
“There should be no confusion as to the purpose of the order, which is to protect the community. Where the case concerns a child, the welfare of the child is, of course, to be considered, and indeed the making of the order should contribute to this by setting standards of expected behaviour. But the welfare of the child is not the principal purpose of the order hearing.”
Home Office (New Labour Government)
A Guide to Anti-Social Behaviour Orders and Acceptable Behaviour Contracts (2006)
Big data & AI
Databases and use of AI enables and amplifies these practices. Connections with others which traditionally have taken significant levels of time and resources to map, and which were reserved for people of significant interest, can now be mapped in minutes for anyone. Patterns of movement which suggest protest can be identified and stopped.
“Following the murder of Freddie Gray by Baltimore police in 2015, for example, it was machine learning algorithms that ‘detected hints of unrest’ among the African American population and preemptively targeted associative life. High school students were prevented from boarding buses to join the protest, people were arrested for their social media content, and groups were apprehended on the basis of image recognition.”
“Facial recognition is incredibly intrusive and capable of achieving complete social surveillance. It can also create significant injustice…”
“To gather together, to make political claims in the world, to associate with others in the absence of secure recognition – all of this is threatened by AI.”
“ShadowDragon, “mapping of the relationships between people risks suspicion by association” and “is likely to entrench systemic racism and is a threat to everyone’s privacy. …”
Phil Mayor, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Michigan
Quoted in The Intercept: ShadowDragon: Inside the social media surveillance software that can watch your every move (2021)
“’AI can help monitor employees’ “typical” behaviour and spot patterns teams would otherwise miss…This means any unusual behaviour is identified immediately and brought to the attention of the relevant department or personnel quickly.”
Hitesh Bansal, Country Head (UK & Ireland) – Cybersecurity & Risk Services, Wipro
AI Magazine: How behavioural AI is transforming the threat landscape (2023)
“AI systems in law enforcement, particularly the use of predictive and profiling AI systems, disproportionately target the most marginalised in society, infringe on liberty and fair trial rights, and reinforce structural discrimination.”
Fair Trials and 49 other civil liberties groups
Open Letter – AI Act: EU must ban predictive AI systems in policing and criminal justice (2022)
Creation of a problem
Pre-crime creates an amplifying, self-referential loop where the measures themselves increase – or sometimes create – awareness of an issue. Public fear levels and perception of the risk of terrorism – for example – are disproportionate to the actual risk.
“Pre-crime addresses hypothetical crimes, and in doing so produces imaginary crimes, criminals and victims, deepening the selective and partial nature of security by fortifying the imaginary border between the community to be protected and those deemed to be threats and subsequently cast outside the circle of protection.”
Professors Jude McCulloch and Dean Wilson
Pre-crime, pre-emption, precaution and the future (2015)
“The real point is not about statistics, it is about how people feel…Because the fear of crime is as important in some respects as crime itself.”
Then PM Tony Blair, quoted by Mark Wilding
VICE, The Age of the ASBO: How Britain Became a Police State. (2017)
“Imagination is a key aspect of pre-crime. Anticipating the worst is openly encouraged in the face of uncertain future threat.”
Professors Jude McCulloch and Dean Wilson
Pre-crime, pre-emption, precaution and the future (2015)
“The police themselves have acknowledged that increases in stop and search can inflate official knife offence figures and the toughening and extension of possession laws targeting knife carrying has been found to increase the likelihood of knife offences being committed by expanding the range of behaviours and actions considered criminal”
“…an array of police ‘products’ are now sold through the gang industry resulting in the proliferation of community-based organisations who claim effectiveness in ‘diverting’ our young people from the periphery, those ‘at risk’ of gang involvement. Our schools are visited by ‘community workers’ accompanied by the ex-gang member who warns of the perils of ‘gang involvement’. Collectively they are the gang-makers.”
“On another level pre-crime produces ‘terrorism’…. Prosecutions for terrorist-related offences work to produce a sense of imminent threat that stands in the place of the acts themselves, though overwhelmingly these prosecutions are not linked to completed, attempted, or planned mass casualty attacks.”
Professors Jude McCulloch and Sharon Pickering
Future threat: pre-crime, state terror, and dystopia in the 21st century (2010)