Written on 9 May 2025.

AI Governance and Precrime: From Psychiatry to Predictive Policing

Donald Trump's April 28th executive order, titled Strengthening and Unleashing Law Enforcement to Pursue Criminals and Protect Innocent Citizens, may represent a seismic shift toward AI-driven governance in the United States. While the media focused on distractions such as papal succession or a new trade deal with the UK, constitutional attorney John Whitehead warned that this order effectively lays the groundwork for domestic martial law. But beneath the American political spectacle, there may be a deeper precedent: the longstanding use of behavioral assessment in psychiatry, particularly in nations like Sweden.

From Psychiatric Precrime to National Policy

Sweden has long maintained an extensive psychiatric classification system in its welfare model. People with autism spectrum disorders or psychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia are often placed on permanent sick pension (sjukersättning), not based on criminal behavior, but on a perceived future risk to themselves or society. This system operates on a form of precrime logic:

You are categorized as potentially unstable or incapable, and thus must be surveilled, treated, and institutionally managed.

This logic is strikingly similar to what Whitehead describes in Trump's executive order. The state becomes the assessor of future behavior, predicting who might commit a crime or pose a threat based on risk models and AI algorithms.

AI as the New Governor

According to Whitehead, Trump's EO blends federal and local police structures, expands surveillance, introduces predictive policing through AI, and removes critical due process protections. This resembles an AI-administered legal structure, where law enforcement is no longer responsive to evidence but rather to data-driven forecasts.

The order also includes language promoting enhanced protections for police officers and undefined enhanced sentencing for those who commit "crimes against law enforcement." These undefined parameters, combined with AI predictions and facial recognition tools, threaten to create a society where ordinary citizens are presumed dangerous until proven obedient.

The Hegelian Trap

Whitehead draws attention to the Hegelian dialectic at play. Under Biden, the border was opened, crime rose, and law enforcement was restrained. Now under Trump, a sweeping crackdown is framed as necessary. The synthesis? A militarized police force with AI tools that make resistance or even skepticism punishable.

This is not a random policy move; it is systemic progression toward total governance through prediction, as once theorized in fiction like Minority Report.

When Mental Health Becomes a Proxy for Security

In Sweden, the label of "mentally unfit" often strips individuals of independence. Social workers, state psychiatrists, and insurance agents act on the assumption that diagnosed individuals may be dangerous, unreliable, or incapable of full autonomy. This "soft martial law" already functions in Swedish welfare governance, with mechanisms to restrict housing, employment, financial control, and even social interaction.

Trump's EO proposes the same model in a hard version: AI algorithms trained on social behavior and biometric data to designate threats. Combined with Real ID national identification, this marks a shift from justice to algorithmic management.

From Diagnosis to Detainment

Whitehead warns of a future in which Americans could be arrested "based on what they think you might do." This is not merely theoretical. DHS has conducted threat assessments on homes across the U.S. Police now operate with equipment once reserved for the military. And individuals can be flagged based on social media comments, political views, or proximity to someone already labeled as dangerous.

In Sweden, it is already a reality that saying "police are stupid" could trigger evaluation for psychiatric confinement. The leap from mental assessment to legal detainment is dangerously short.

Conclusion: Do We Have Rights or Privileges?

Whitehead's central question cuts to the core: Do we have rights or do we have privileges?

If the state, guided by AI and armed enforcers, gets to determine what qualifies as acceptable behavior in advance, then rights become permissions. Whether under psychiatric guardianship in Sweden or AI-driven policing in America, the citizen becomes an object to be managed, not a sovereign being under the rule of law.

Whitehead urges resistance not through violence but through local awareness and constitutional education. Without this, he warns, tanks on American streets and predictive arrests may become the new normal—justified not by justice, but by the illusion of safety.