Predictions: Crime and Criminal Justice in the 21st Century 1. The United States will experience a significant economic recession/crisis very close to the turn of the Century. 2. As the large pool of young people born in the early 1990s become teenagers and young adults, there will be a dramatic increase in violent crime around the year 2005-2010. 3. America will experience sporadic civil disorders/riots in many of its urban areas during the next 10-15 years -- much of it related to racial/ethnic problems. 4. Terrorist acts by "fringe"/special issue groups will increase at a significant rate -- becoming a major law enforcement and security problem. 5. As faith in the criminal justice system declines, there will be a rise in vigilante-based incidents where citizens take the enforcement of crime problems into their own hands. 6. Much of middle- and upper-class America will take a "retreatist" attitude and move into private high-security communities located in suburban or rural areas. Because of technological advances, many companies and corporations will also move out of the urban environments as well. 7. Due to many of the predictions listed above, much of law enforcement and security in the 21st Century will become privatized and contractual. Traditional law enforcement agencies will primarily serve urban and rural communities. 8. Law enforcement will evolve into two major and divergent roles: traditional law enforcement and a more specialized military tactical role to deal with the growing urban violance and terrorist incidents. 9. Significant violence and unrest will plague our nation's prisons. Major prison riots will become a regular occurrence. 10. With the decrease of the possibility of major global warfare, the United States military will take on an increased domestic "peace-keeping" role with America's law enforcement agencies. John Young wrote:
Tim asks:
Freeh and Company continue to mumble about "meeting the legitmate needs of law enforcement." What can they be speaking of? ... Obviously his side is contemplating domestic crypto restrictions.
Threat of terrorism will be the impetus for applying national security restrictions domestically, for relaxing cold war limitations on spying on Americans, for dissolving barriers between law enforcement and military/intelligence agencies.
Technical means for access to encrypted data will probably come first in communications, then to stored material. There will be an agreement for increased CALEA wiretap funding, which is what the two cellular and wired suits against the FBI intend, (paralleling what the hardware and software industries want from federal buyers of security products).
This will provide the infrastructural regime for the gov to monitor and store domestic traffic as NSA does for the global, using the same technology (NSA may provide service to domestic LEA as it now does for other gov customers for intel).
Other access will come through hardware and software for computers, paralleling technology developed for telecomm tapping, tracking and monitoring.
Most probably through overt/covert features of microprocessors and OS's, as reported recently of Wintel and others, but also probably with special chips for DSP and software for modular design -- why build from scratch when these handy kits are available.
As noted here, the features will appear first as optional, in response to demand from commerce, from parents, from responsible institutions, to meet public calls for protection, for privacy, for combating threats to the American people.
Like wiretap law, use of the features for preventative snooping will initially require a court order, as provided in several of the crypto legislative proposals.
Like the wiretap orders, gradually there will be no secret court refusals for requests to use the technology in the national interest.
A publicity campain will proclaims that citizens with nothing to hide will have nothing to fear. Assurance of safety will be transparent, no clicks on the line. In a digital world, home-office devices will send lifestyle data to the device manufacturers over the always monitoring transparental Net.
Personal privacy will evaporate almost unnoticeably, as with the tv remote control, cp/defcon/bar brag, telephone, fax and forever-lovers pillowtalk.