PLSC 472 z

Learning Goal: I’m working on a political science question and need a sample draft to help me learn.

The film Minority Report is set in the future. It deals with an attempt to use an experimental program called “pre-crime” to address the high rate of violent crime. The film raises a variety of issues that you should discuss on this forum about the administration of criminal justice and how the need to protect security should be balanced against the need to defend due process rights. Other issues are addressed as well in the movie, such as the philosophical debate between free will and determinism. Your primary discussion board posts, and replies to other students, should identify and discuss these issues and should draw upon specific scenes and dialogue to illustrate your points and to defend your position. For example, an advertisement for Pre Crime tells us “That which keeps us safe also keeps us free.” How would you interpret that statement and how does it relate to the theme of the movie?

You should also draw upon ideas and details in the assigned reading in the Carp text book that relate to criminal law and the administration of criminal justice. Most of the important themes in the film are set out in about the first 40 minutes of the movie, although much of the plot in the remainder of the movie addresses various visions of crime control such as how technology can be used, or abused, to satisfy a societal need for security.