PRE-CRIME AND COUNTER-TERRORISM Imagining Future Crime in the ‘ War on Terror

Counter-terrorism Pre-crime

The accelerated and continuing integration of national security and criminal justice under counterterrorism frameworks consolidates a tendency away from traditional criminal justice concerns. There is a shift in focus away from individual offending towards pre-emptive strategies that aim to identify threats and make interventions before crimes take place. Lucia Zedner refers to this development as a shift towards a pre-crime society ‘ in which the possibility of forestalling risks competes with and even takes precedence over responding to wrongs done ’ , and where ‘ the post-crime orientation of criminal justice is increasingly overshadowed by the pre-crime logic of security.