Sci-Fi

Sociology

Key (lock)

Social science

Criminology

Criminal justice

Literature

Reflexivity

Artificial intelligence

Crime control

Computer science

Punk

Art history

Object (grammar)

Computer security

Fantasy

Crime Media Culture An International Journal

This article makes a case for the value of science fiction to criminologists through examining the popular Japanese cyber-punk anime series Psycho-Pass. Through portraying a surveillance society of pre-crime and algorithmic policing, Psycho-Pass raises important questions about the datafication of crime and its role in facilitating increasingly invasive and ubiquitous forms of social control. Psycho-Pass, I argue, encourages us to question a society of algorithmic tyranny: a society where the overwhelming majority of classifications are driven by algorithms, and where crime has been reduced to a data object and ‘measureable type’. I conclude my case for incorporating the technological imagination of science fiction into the criminological imagination through identifying three key resources the genre may offer criminologists: archaeological, pedagogical and capacity building for reflexive governance.

Algorithmic tyranny:<i>Psycho-Pass</i>, science fiction and the criminological imagination

Algorithmic tyranny:Psycho-Pass, science fiction and the criminological imagination