- What Is Precrime?
Founded 30 years ago by John Anderton, Precrime is a system that has been running for 30 years in New York; it is unspecified as to whether there are other branches of Precrime around the world, but it is mentioned that the New York department was the first to be created. It is a system that replaces the previous system of discovering a crime and its perpetrator after it had been committed (with punishment given as a penalty for such action), with imprisonment before the crime takes place to prevent it ever happening. As Witwer says in the introduction to the story, “punishment was never much of a deterrent, and could scarcely have afforded comfort to a victim already dead”. (pp. 2) It is specified that Precrime deals solely with cases of murder.
- How the system works
The system of predicting the future in reports (called “previsions” in the film adaptation) is carried out by three mutants, called 'precogs'. There are two men and one woman: Donna, Jerry, and Mike, 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 school - for example, Jerry was initially diagnosed as a hydrocephalic idiot, but the precog talent was found under layers of damaged brain tissue. 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 valid predictions of the future. This information is assembled by the computer into the form of various symbols, before being transcribed onto conventional punchcards which are ejected into various coded slots; when cards are produced, they appear simultaneously at both Precrime, and the Army GHQ, in order to prevent corruption. The precogs themselves 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 whatsoever. Their physical appearance is somewhat different from that of ordinary humans, with enlarged heads and wasted bodies. According to John, precogs are “deformed and retarded... the talent absorbs everything; the esp-lobe shrivels the balance of the frontal area [...] They don't understand any of (their predictions), but we do” (pp. 4). Most of the data produced is useless in preventing murders, and is then passed on to other agencies.
Statistically, Precrime is reported to have cut the number of felonies committed by 99.8% since its introduction. There has been only one murder in the past 5 years.
- What is a “minority report?”
The concept of a 'minority report' is explained in full during a radio news flash in the middle of the story. It explains the concept so well that I shall simply reproduce it here.
“The system of three precogs finds its genesis in the computers of the middle decades of this century. How are the results of an electronic computer 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 utilise a third computer to check the results of the first two. In this manner, a co-called majority report is obtained. It can be assumed with fair probability 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” (pp. 19-20)
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