History Main / PrecrimeArrest

* In ''Series/TheFlash2014'', Nora was already operating in a questionable moral area in her time in the past due to her alliance with the Reverse-Flash, but in the fic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13266807/1/Ice-cold-deception Ice cold deception]]'' she attempts to kill a meta because of what he'll do a few years in the future that tore her family apart (drive Barry and Caitlin to have an affair and conceive a daughter whom Iris would try to kill out of jealousy), only being stopped because Ralph was suspicious and followed her down to the cell before she could kill the man in question.

** In addition, the fans are quick to blame ''Captain'' Janeway for the crimes of ''Admiral'' Janeway in the GrandFinale, even though ''Captain'' Janeway will never become that version of her future self due to the change in timeline.

* In "Ballad of Davy Crockett (In Outer Space)" by Music/TheyMightBeGiants, because Davy is "Messing around with the fabric of time
He knows who's guilty 'fore there's even a crime".

* The Tsar of Russia in ''WebOriginal/AGoldenIslandToTheWest'' begins having people arrested using future knowledge of crimes they 'would' commit against his rule in the future. Arresting an eight-year-old for writing a seditious book, or trying to arrest someone for plotting his assassination despite them not even being born yet.

* ''Fanfic/LightningOnlyStrikesOnce'' sees Clarke and Lexa (''Series/The100'') sent back to the beginning of the series from the middle of the third season, which results in Lexa [[spoiler:killing Charles Pike]] to stop him repeating his actions in the original timeline. However, she only takes this action after confirming that [[spoiler:Pike]] has serious prejudices that he is not willing to overcome, and most of the time agrees with Clarke's own preference to stop future crimes by giving others a chance to get over their issues, such as arranging for Charlotte (who killed Wells in the original timeline) to be adopted by a Grounder family, or preventing Finn and Bellamy becoming soldiers so that they never have the chance to kill anyone.
* In ''Series/TheFlash2014'', Nora was already operating in a questionable moral area in her time in the past due to her alliance with the Reverse-Flash, but in the fic "[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13266807/1/Ice-cold-deception Ice cold deception]]" she attempts to kill a meta because of what he'll do a few years in the future that tore her family apart (specifically drive Barry and Caitlin to have an affair and conceive a daughter whom Iris would try to kill out of jealousy), only being stopped because Ralph was suspicious and followed her down to the cell before she could kill the man in question.
* Brought up in the ''Franchise/StarWars'' fic ''Fanfic/PadawansReturn'' when Ahsoka Tano finds herself sent back from the time of the Empire to the time of ''Film/ThePhantomMenace''. While she immediately recognises that she can't go after Palpatine as she has no evidence of his existing crimes, she finds herself frustrated that she knows what Dooku will do in the future but has no legitimate reason to go after him in the present when he's still a Jedi who is merely curious about the Dark Side but hasn't actually turned yet. Mace Windu sums up the problem in particular;

* Brought up in the ''Franchise/StarWars'' fic "[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/38701785/ Padawan's Return]]" when Ahsoka Tano finds herself sent back from the time of the Empire to the time of ''Film/ThePhantomMenace''. While she immediately recognises that she can't go after Palpatine as she has no evidence of his existing crimes, she finds herself frustrated that she knows what Dooku will do in the future but has no legitimate reason to go after him in the present when he's still a Jedi who is merely curious about the Dark Side but hasn't actually turned yet. Mace Windu sums up the problem in particular;

* In 1994, police officers in Queensland, Australia who came to be known as the Pinkenba Six were charged with deprivation of liberty after driving three Aboriginal boys aged 12-14 to a remote area, threatening to throw them in a swamp and leaving them stranded (their trip back home was considerably shortened thanks to a GoodSamaritan who paid for a taxi). This was an attempt to ScareEmStraight - the boys had no criminal record, weren't committing a crime at the time and weren't accused of any crimes. The case could be considered an inversion of the trope in that the officers were put on probation by the police force, but were never criminally convicted.

* In 1994, police officers in Queensland, Australia who came to be known as the Pinkbah Six were charged with deprivation of liberty after driving three Aboriginal boys aged 12-14 to a remote area, threatening to throw them in a swamp and leaving them stranded (their trip back home was considerably shortened thanks to a GoodSamaritan who paid for a taxi). This was an attempt to ScareEmStraight - the boys had no criminal record, weren't committing a crime at the time and weren't accused of any crimes. The case could be considered an inversion of the trope in that the officers were put on probation by the police force, but were never criminally convicted.

* In 1994, police officers who came to be known as the Pinkbah Six were charged with deprivation of liberty after driving three Aboriginal boys aged 12-14 to a remote area, threatening to throw them in a swamp and leaving them stranded (their trip back home was considerably shortened thanks to a GoodSamaritan who paid for a taxi). This was an attempt to ScareEmStraight - the boys had no criminal record, weren't committing a crime at the time and weren't accused of any crimes. The case could be considered an inversion of the trope in that the officers were put on probation by the police force, but were never criminally convicted.

* While in the West, outright arrest is not allowed, there had been examples, such as Chicago, [[https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/precrime-film-documentary-minority-report-police-a8289576.html of the use of an algorithm to predict its inhabitants’ potential involvement with violent crime, which creates a Strategic Subject List - known colloquially as the “heat list” - a comprehensive list of who it considers to be the most dangerous people in the city]], and people are commonly warned due to this list.

* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'': In "[[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S08E21TimeChasers A Stitch in Time]]", a professor who was raped as a teenager invents a time machine, using it to go back in time and [[SerialKillerKiller kill serial killers]] before they could claim any victims. She even limits herself to killers who have not only been convicted but ''executed'' for their murders, but since all her victims hadn't killed anyone ''yet'', law enforcement sees them as completely innocent victims of ''another'' serial killer with a career spanning ''forty years.'' [[spoiler:She eventually undoes her own motivation to do this by rescuing her teenage self, but still invents the time machine because she clearly remembers her future self stepping through a time portal. So as one of her victims went on to kill the partner of an FBI agent -- a murder originally undone though time travel, then re-done by the rescue -- the agent goes back to save her partner by killing the killer. It's implied that the agent will go on a similar time-travelling killing spree to the one she spent the episode investigating]].

* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'': In "A Stitch in Time", a professor who was raped as a teenager invents a time machine, using it to go back in time and [[SerialKillerKiller kill serial killers]] before they could claim any victims. She even limits herself to killers who have not only been convicted but ''executed'' for their murders, but since all her victims hadn't killed anyone ''yet'', law enforcement sees them as completely innocent victims of ''another'' serial killer with a career spanning ''forty years.'' [[spoiler:She eventually undoes her own motivation to do this by rescuing her teenage self, but still invents the time machine because she clearly remembers her future self stepping through a time portal. So as one of her victims went on to kill the partner of an FBI agent -- a murder originally undone though time travel, then re-done by the rescue -- the agent goes back to save her partner by killing the killer. It's implied that the agent will go on a similar time-travelling killing spree to the one she spent the episode investigating]].
-->"Our yesterdays are like a string of pearls -- unbroken -- unchanging. But if we could change our past, would that also change who we are?"

* ''Series/SevenDays'' occasionally had Frank preventing a crime as the episode's plot. Every episode, Frank is sent back in time seven days to prevent whatever disaster has happened. Sometimes he's able to do it by preventing the perpetrator from attempting the crime. Most episodes, however, this trope is subverted, and Frank has to stop the crime/disaster ''as it happens'' instead of preventing it from being attempted.

* ''VideoGame/LegacyOfKain'' has an example of how ''spectacularly bad'' attempting this trope can go. Throughout the first game, the land of Nosgoth is suffering under the iron hand of the EvilOverlord known only as “The Nemesis”. Near the end of the game, Kain finds himself decades in the past, with the Nemesis at his mercy… and he kills the tyrant before his tyranny can begin. When he returns to the future, he discovers that [[spoiler:history has recorded the murder of “King William the Just” at the hands of a vampire, and embarked on a campaign of genocide - a successful one, as he arrives just as the second-to-last vampire is executed, leaving Kain the last of his kind]].

* ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'' plays with this. Beerus executes Zamasu partly for his various crimes, the bulk of which he has yet to commit, while avoiding the legal problems outlined above due to knowing with certainty that he is going to do it. And because it's not like the letter of the law matters to a God of Destruction.

* While in the West it is seen as a pretty heavy example of HollywoodLaw and ArtisticLicenseLaw, this is already implemented by [[https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-said-to-deploy-big-data-for-predictive-policing-in-xinjiang-1519719096 China as "Integrated Joint Operations Platform"]], using Big Data to identify and pre-emptively detain potential troublemakers in Xinjian.