In this blog post, we will examine whether a national system for crime prevention can achieve the public good without infringing on individual human rights.
National management systems for crime prevention and human rights violations
With the rapid development of science and technology, many countries have emphasized the need for systems that control and manage individuals to prevent crime. In particular, the development of data collection and AI technology in the 21st century has made more efficient and systematic crime prevention possible. The introduction of these systems is due to the rapid increase in crime rates and social unrest, and the aim is to ensure the safety of the people by managing them. However, in the process of applying these systems, the issue of infringement of individual privacy and human rights is also emerging significantly throughout society.
A typical example is that after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, the United States began to indiscriminately collect biometric information on all immigrants in the name of protecting its citizens and preventing crime, emphasizing the need to be vigilant against terrorism. For example, systems that identify individuals through irises and fingerprints have been introduced at airports and public facilities, and recently, such surveillance systems have been expanded to airports in various countries. The UK has also strengthened its explosives detection capabilities and introduced X-ray airport screening scanners (also known as “naked scanners”) to enable rapid detection and crime prevention surveillance. These scanners can detect passengers’ underwear, but they have caused serious privacy concerns.
Several developed countries, including the United States, Germany, and France, have implemented systems such as strengthening the disclosure of personal information of child sex offenders and electronic monitoring to prevent recidivism of child sex offenders and sex offenders, and have shown positive effects of reducing the sex crime rate. In response to this, Korea has also made it mandatory for sex offenders to wear electronic monitoring devices since 2008. However, this system has raised the possibility of infringing on the human rights of criminals, and this controversy remains unresolved. In addition, the introduction of a law in 2006 to collect and manage the genetic information of violent criminals made it possible to collect personal information for crime prevention, but the issue of human rights violations arising from this continues to be discussed.
The state’s personal control system for the purpose of crime prevention is often featured in science fiction movies. For example, the movie “Minority Report” depicts a highly developed future society in which a crime prediction system called the “Precrime System” predicts and prevents crime in advance. In the movie, three forecasters visualize the crime scene and the Precrime team uses this to arrest the criminal. In this process, all personal information is collected in the system’s databank, and a system that identifies individuals through iris recognition technology is introduced. This is a society where the individual’s every move is monitored by the system under the pretext of crime prevention, and there is a significant lack of protection of privacy. Such a surveillance society makes the “individual’s human rights” appear to be subordinate to the “national management system,” and it raises awareness of the future that modern society may face.
The film also warns of the risk of such systems being abused as a tool for the abuse of power. The scene in which the administrator of the “Precrime System” in the film, “Lama Burgess,” uses the system to identify the main character as a criminal, shows that innocent citizens can become victims of abuse of power if the crime prevention system is abused by the power elite. The fact that innocent individuals can easily be labeled as criminals if a national management system is controlled by a specific group is shocking and suggests that we need to be on the lookout for possible abuse of the system.
Crime prevention systems and human rights violations from a philosophical perspective
From the perspective of utilitarianism, a conclusion that can be reached from a consequentialist approach is that a society in which the human rights of individuals as seen in The Minority Report are controlled by the state and the system may be necessary for the maintenance and survival of the state. As seen in the examples of developed countries, crime prevention systems have a positive impact in terms of reducing crime rates and ease of management. However, this utilitarian approach has the limitation that it can ignore individual human rights, although it values the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people. Michael Sandel criticizes utilitarianism using the story of the “lifeboat” as an example. If the utilitarian mindset is to sacrifice one person to save three, then this is against human dignity and human value cannot be the subject of such calculation. In other words, the human rights of individuals must be respected as an absolute value and cannot be sacrificed simply for the public good.
Kant’s ethical perspective also applies the proposition that humans should be treated as an end in themselves, not as a mere means. If a crime prevention system controls individuals through excessive information collection and surveillance, it is treating individuals as mere objects of control, and any human rights violations that may occur as a result of this cannot be tolerated.
Conclusion
A state-managed system for crime prevention may show positive aspects from a utilitarian perspective, such as a reduction in crime rates and ease of management, but it may infringe on the absolute value of human rights. In addition, if the system is abused, it can act as a risk factor for the abuse of power and innocent citizens. In such a confrontational situation, the issues of crime prevention and human rights violations cannot be solved by simply placing emphasis on one value. Communication and consensus between the state and individuals are essential to solve this problem.
In order to ensure that the national management system functions within the scope of not infringing on human rights, the role of independent oversight bodies such as the Public Data Management Committee should be strengthened, and continuous feedback and adjustments are needed to ensure that the collection and surveillance of personal information is carried out within a just and lawful scope. On the premise that the human rights of individuals are absolutely guaranteed, there is a need for a process in which the state and individuals constantly communicate with each other to ensure the transparency and rationality of the system.
Therefore, it will be necessary for the state and individuals to work together to ensure that current or future crime prevention state management systems can fully perform their crime prevention functions while guaranteeing human rights.
