Should legislation, laws and policing predict and resource against imminent new crime frontiers, or must they wait to see evidence of them before we legislate, enforce and police against them? This conundrum has been with us since time immemorial and doesn’t look to have a resolu.

When signals like What comes first the crime or the law emerge, organisations that engage early have the advantage of choosing their response rather than reacting to events. That gap between those who prepared and those who did not is where competitive positioning is actually made or lost.

The most important question is not whether What comes first the crime or the law will matter, but how quickly it will matter in your specific context. Leaders benefit most from mapping the ripple effects early — not just the direct impact but the second and third-order consequences that arrive later and hit harder. That is the practical work of foresight.