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“You’ve probably grasped the basic legalistic drawback to precrime methodology. We’re taking in individuals who have broken no law.”
“But they surely will,” Witwer affirmed with conviction.
This conversation between Anderton and Witwer occurs at the very beginning of the story, during their tour of the police station. As Anderton states, Precrime is legally dubious because it involves the arrest of technically innocent people. Witwer’s wholehearted belief that the guilt of the accused is inevitable speaks to how Precrime as a system is mythologized as an infallible oracle that keeps the people safe. As long as people believe the computers’ predictions to be accurate and inevitable but for police action, the system can continue to arrest people who have committed no physical crimes with the public’s enthusiastic support.
The existence of a majority logically implies a corresponding minority.
This message that Fleming leaves on Anderton’s false identity papers helps direct Anderton toward seeking out the minority report. On a plot level, Kaplan uses this message to manipulate Anderton into bringing him the minority report and discrediting Precrime. However, it also speaks to the logical flaw in Precrime. The radio explains minority reports conceptually using equations as an example, but Precrime analyzes time paths. Instead of being a wrong answer, an alternate time path suggests there is a possibility, even if it’s remote, that something else might happen. As long as there is a minority report in Precrime, the majority carries doubt.
The allegations against him were patent frauds, diabolical distortions of a contaminated penal system based on a false premise—a vast, impersonal engine of destruction grinding men and women to their doom.
Kaplan’s speech at the military rally demonstrates the constraints under which Anderton makes his decision to kill. Kaplan’s denouncement of Precrime is based on flaws made apparent throughout the action of the story. However, because Kaplan uses these just criticisms of Precrime as a pretense for a military coup, this speech is not actually an effort to bring a corrupt system to light, but rather a power grab. Kaplan’s conspiratorial scheme limits Anderton’s ability to question the status quo or learn any lessons from his experience as a fugitive.
“Each report was different,” Anderton concluded. “Each was unique. But two of them agreed on one point. If left free, I would kill Kaplan. That created the illusion of a majority report.”
Anderton’s final revelation—that there was never a majority report in the first place—emphasizes that the system he has sacrificed his freedom to uphold doesn’t really work. The computer reads the prediction through a binary lens of whether or not Anderton would kill Kaplan. However, when examined more closely, each report is quite different in terms of the circumstances required for Anderton to kill Kaplan. Although he assures Witwer otherwise, the Precrime system creates an illusion of objectivity and infallibility, of a clear fated outcome. However, as the existence of minority reports prove, there is always room for doubt.
