The Minority Report is one of the movies that depict the topic of victimology. In this movie, the Precrime department has developed Precogs to stop murders. The Precogs can visualize murders before they happen and, this makes John Anderton to be a victim. The Precogs have predicted that Anderton will commit murder 36 in hours (Spielberg, 2002). Anderton is forced to flee to escape arrest. He later discovers that he is being framed for murder and the Precogs have some flaws.
Notably, Anderton has the characteristics of a typical victim. First, he separated with his wife following the disappearance of their son. Secondly, after the Precogs predict that he is going to commit murder, he runs away (Spielberg, 2002). He even takes a risky eye transplant to avoid being detected by the optical recognition system in the city. At some point, he is captured, accused of murders, and imprisoned.
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Similarly, as a victim, Anderton has experienced some serious costs. He is forced to run away and risks his life by undergoing an eye transplant in the hands of a doctor in a black market. He also gets into a confrontation with Burgess who wants to kill him. Anderton also undertakes a risky mission to prove his innocence.
However, Anderton does not experience a state of hopelessness. First, he knows a secret about one of the Precogs named Agatha that she had a different recognition. He decides to use this secret to damage the credibility of the Precogs (Spielberg, 2002). After the eye transplant, he kidnaps Agatha leading to the shutdown of the system. He also solves the mystery surrounding Lively’s death and in the end, the Precogs are sent away. Interestingly, Anderton reconciles with Lara and they are expecting a baby.
Notably, Merton’s theory of anomie is the best theory applicable in this movie. According to the theory, a crime is produced by societal values that encourage success without providing adequate means of achieving that success is a key belief of this theory ( Hagan & Daigle, 2018). Secondly, the absence of adequate means for achieving success, forced individuals to seek alternate and, even non-approved means to achieve it.
More so, I believe Merton’s theory of anomie applies to the Minority Report . In this movie, the Precrime unit wants to stop murders without looking at any faults in the Precogs. Consequently, Anderton is forced to flee and later kidnaps Agatha to shut down this system because it is faulty and prove his innocence too. This is to say that Anderton is forced to engage in criminal activities after a faulty system predicted that he would kill a man he did not even know. Preventing murder is a societal value, but failing to create a good system to achieve it forces Anderton to commit crimes.
From the chapter, different terms apply to the Minority Report movie. First, victimization is a situation where someone experiences unjust treatment. In some cases, the victim has not committed any crime ( Hagan & Daigle, 2018) . This term applies to this movie because Anderton had not committed any crime. It was only predicted by the Precogs that he would commit murder and a manhunt is launched to arrest him.
Secondly, violent crimes occur in situations where the offender uses force and violence on the victim. These are crimes that include murder, rape, and kidnapping. In this movie, murder and violent crimes are depicted. For instance, Anderton kidnaps Agatha while Lively was murdered by a hooded person.
Thirdly, the role of the victim in crime seeks to know how and why the victim was involved in crime ( Hagan & Daigle, 2018) . In this movie, Anderton was involved in kidnapping because he did not only want to prove that he was innocent, but also shut down the Precogs system.
References
Hagan, F. E., & Daigle, L. E. (2018). Introduction to criminology: Theories, methods, and
criminal behavior . Sage Publications.
Spielberg, S. (Director). (2002). Minority Report [Motion Picture].
