So what kinds of crime will we see in the future? While we have some kind of money, we'll always have greed and theft. Whether it's physical objects like gold bars, or noughts and ones in a computer, somebody will want to steal them.
We'll always have people wanting revenge for something. Messed-up childhoods aren't going to go away in the future. Family vendettas and feuds will also still exist. They'll probably get bigger, and stretch across several star systems.
Future tech will also create future crime. We're working on invisibility cloaks for real now, when we have them they'll be a burglar's, and an army's, dream come true. Panthera : Death Spiral and Panthera : Death Song are based upon the exploitation of big cats for illegal medical research. That's another theme which I see continuing. Sadly, humans will continue exploiting the other creatures they share the universe with for their own gain.
Even our leisure time won't be immune from this. In my novel Eyemind interactive artworks are programming people to self-harm through the use of illegal subliminal messages. The future equivalent of movies could contain subliminals too. If a revolutionary movement used the technology to programme people into joining its organisation a government would have a big problem on its hands.
I've even got a crime against a whole planet in my book Jade. There is a symbiotic relationship between the planet's ocean and vegetation, which turns out to be an intelligent planimal. They share information between them, and are truly sentient. But of course humans want to move in and plunder the planet's natural resources for their own greedy ends. In that book, it falls to a small and enlightened group of humans to stop them.
As long as humans endure, so will crime. And not only will we continue to commit them against our fellow humans, but when we meet alien species we'll probably rob them too. Our crimes will get bigger. Future crime will be a thriving activity for a long time to come.
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