Pre-Crime and Non-Citizens

• In Event: Pre-Crime: Preempting Suspects at the Temporal Border

Abstract

This paper charts the application of pre crime on non citizens both within the nation state and beyond. Europe, North America and Australia grapple with what is to be done about irregular migration – denizens, vagabonds and the broadly undesirable (see Aas, 2013, Weber, 2013). Increasingly responses have been to effectively close borders, deter, repel, warehouse and return those who are unwanted. Many of these measures have used traditional, albeit, blurred military and criminal justice measures often operating well before the traditional border and often in direct contravention of legal and human rights norms. Public discourse increasingly regards non citizens irregularly crossing border as illegal and a criminal threat. Despite this irregular migration continues to increase. Nations and regions of the Global North are now turning to pre-emptive strategies to deter unwanted migration, not only before it occurs, but before it is determined as a course of action by individuals and groups. This requires the use of vast data mining and ‘intent management’ to ‘manage the intent’ of unwanted travellers even before they identify a need for travel or a destination. This paper considers the ways this is occurring and the implications for agencies, international relations and legal norms.

Author

• Sharon Pickering, Monash University