Alex_Spider
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http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/06/when-sci-fi-crime-prevention-tactics-arent-actually-that-far-fetched/276626/
I hope we get more like of a Star Trek future.
Oh well. Soylent Green and Brazil should be in that list also.
The Purge seems implausible, but according to criminologists, some sci-fi films' law-enforcement methods could be possible one day—and some are in use right now.
Judging by the reviews, Lena Headey and Ethan Hawke's new film The Purge may be pretty forgettable. But at least one aspect of the future-set movie intrigues: the premise. Set a decade from now, The Purge takes place in a world where the United States is thriving, where unemployment is less than one percent, and crime at an all time low. To safeguard this prosperity, the government indulges its citizens in an annual purge, a 12-hour amnesty in which all criminal activity is made legal.
"When you look at the technologies that the U.S. government is already employing, we're very close to 'RoboCop.'"
It's not just the idea of ED-209's patrolling the Nuke-infested streets of Detroit that's surprisingly plausible, though. The film's fascination with the involvement of the insidious OmniCorp is also prescient. "We've already started in on that trajectory," Rothe says. "Not only with the privatisation of our prisons, but also if you look at the state's use of private companies that are active not only in conflicts abroad, but even in issues of homeland security."
Indeed it's not so much of a leap from the War on Terror, where we've already seen that the state is willing to manipulate the status of suspects in order to deny them due process. Rothe also points to the mounting concern over the use of drone strikes, and the recent revelations that four U.S citizens died in action rendered by the government's controversial Disposition Matrix: "It's not any more far fetched than having a Judge actually do it in each of these separate areas," she says.
While John Carpenter's timeline might have been a little off, according to the experts I spoke with, his idea wasn't so wide of the mark. "Given that more things are being seen as criminalized ... I see that this is very possible, especially if the economic conditions continue to worsen and unemployment continues to rise." Rothe says. Indeed, figures released last year by the Department of Justice showed that the U.S has the highest incarcerated population in the world; there are currently around 2.2 million people here behind bars, a number equal to a city the size of Houston. "I could very easily see [a situation] where they would make a huge area into a prison where people were left in there to their own devices," Rothe says. "In many ways we already see that internally, even though it's not spoken about, within our own prison system. So I don't see it as so far fetched."
Given that we already live in a world where the schedules are saturated with reality shows, the premise behind The Running Man is starting to look at lot less absurd. "I think that it would be quite easy to keep the population in check through oppression, mandated infotainment and through fear..." Rothe says. "If it was truly a totalitarian police state then it is entirely plausible, because at that point the general population, much less the criminal population, are dispensable. So why not use them not only to decrease the numbers in the prisons, but also to entertain and pacify the general population, to keep them from being any kind of threat to the state itself?"
I hope we get more like of a Star Trek future.
Oh well. Soylent Green and Brazil should be in that list also.
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