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 could technology present a superior alternative to preventing crime than laws? (3)

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could technology present a superior alternative to preventing crime than laws?

Should more focus be placed on developing preventative technologies to stop social problems, (eg. Cars that dont start until you perform a breath test to prevent drink driving), and less on the creation and amending of new and existing laws?

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1 point

I want to start by saying the main point driving this argument is that prevention is a better outcome than punishment after a crime has already been committed.

Laws have always been viewed as the default solution for crime in society. Because of this mentality little focus has been directed to technologies to prevent crime. Most laws are essentially threats in nature; if you do something bad then something bad will happen to you, and for a law to be effective in preventing a crime it must be assumed that the level of risk and punishment is higher than the gain from committing the crime. The flaw with this logic is that human nature and history dictates that we don't all have the same morals, reasoning, and we don't always make the right decisions; therefore, what might prevent 50% of the population not to commit a crime may not work for the other half. Another issue is, crimes committed irrationally, in the absence of any reasoning or pre-meditated thought can not be prevented by laws, because as mentioned earlier for laws to be effective, the person committing the crime would have to be understanding of the relative law, have the capacity to assess his chances of getting caught and the severity of the punishment in relation to the reward, and then to make the decision as to whether or not to commit said crime. You would also have to assume that every person has that capacity and performs that thought process before committing any crime. This is obviously absurd.

Another issue with laws is that they tell people what is moral and what is not. Morals are relative to the individual, and peoples decision making and therefore there actions are dictated by that fact. If a person thinks what he is doing is moral, then most of the time it will be done, regardless of what is written in legislation.

The main argument for technology as a superior method of preventing crime, is that it is in nature a preventative solution, which as I asserted earlier is the most desirable outcome. New technologies would be designed to prevent crimes which involve a decision making process by making the decision for them. for example, cars could be designed to have in built breath testers to prevent drink driving, in built GPS in cars could trigger a mechanism that prevents the car speeding.This would take away the possibility of someone deciding to drive at dangerous speeds. One only needs to look at the revenue gained from drink driving and speeding tickets to see that current laws aren't having a significant enough influence on drivers. There are technologies that exist similar to these although they aren't perfected and have many flaws, an increase in focus on these types of technologies could see a significant decrease in crime and eventually due to the exponential nature of technology, the end of crime.

1 point

Yes, I think so. Technology is usually built to give us at least an almost concrete answer. Most of our laws today are open to interpretations. That's where the jury and the judges come in. One case could be ruled out on negligence by one judge but on a second appeal, it could be ruled more favorably by another judge and the jury. Overall, laws are created all the time around the world. If we need a more fairer judgement, and a judgement that will apply to everybody who commits that crime, then we need to build more specific technologies.

I think technology should be invented to prevent crimes from happening.