Anderton
John Anderton is the main character of the story. He is the Police commissioner and his greatest achievement is using precog mutants to prevent crimes. He likes his job and the respect he has in society. Anderton is convinced that his system is perfect and there is no chance it would fail. He is a contradictive person - at first he says that he is responsible for the system and how it works: “We’re solely responsible. If we slip up, somebody dies. It’s a public trust.” But later he shows another side of his personality, less benevolent: “In that, the second –time path, all I wanted to do was to keep my job. It wasn’t Kaplan I wanted to kill. It was my own position and life I was interested in.” The author neither judges him for it nor justifies – he is a person who cares just about his own life.
Kaplan
Leopold Kaplan is the retired General of the Army of the Federated Westbloc Alliance, an old man who hated the Precrime and wanted to destroy the system. It was he who falsified the majority report to prove that the precogs were false and the whole system is wasteful and because of it many innocent people are in prison. He is cunning, self-confident and cruel, his desire to get the authority is infinite, he was happy to put on his general suit again: “For this event Kaplan has got his old uniform from its mothballs. Straight and impressive, he stood surrounded in what had been his general stuff. He wore his service bars, his medals, his boots his decorative short-sword, and his visored up. It was amazing how transformed a bald man became under the stark potency of an officer’s peak and visored cap.” But his self-confidence made a bad joke with him – being so close to his aim, he has forgotten that he was standing near the man who was going to kill him, which was a huge mistake. Kaplan dies and the system, he wanted to ruin, is still living and prospering.
Witwer
Ed Witwer was a new assistant of Anderton. He was good looking, with blond hair and overly-confident, as Anderton noticed: “The young man's eyes were blue, bright -and disturbingly clever. Witwer was nobody's fool. And obviously he had a great deal of ambition.” And because of his youth and ambition, Anderton disliked him, he thought that Witwer came to remove him. That is why when Anderton achieved the card where was said that he has an intention to commit the crime, his new assistant was his main suspect. But, as it happened, Witwer appeared the man of honor, he helped Anderton to destroy Kaplan and to keep his system. In the end, this self-confident man gets what he wants – he becomes a Police Commissioner and Anderton gets out of the stage.
Lisa
Lisa is “Anderson’s slim and attractive young wife”. His former secretary, now Lisa is an executive official of Precrime. She was discerning woman and noticed every change in her husband’s behavior. Anderton trusted his wife and, in her turn, she was attentive and supportive. But Lisa was also a cunning woman, she was even ready to kill her husband because his personal safety was more important for him than the existence of system. She tried to convince her husband that there were no plot against him and Witwer was an honest man, and he believed her. She was also a strong woman who helped his husband and left her job to run away with him.
The Precogs: Donna, Jerry, and Mike
They are three mutants who predicted the future, they are idiots, who didn’t have spiritual needs, they are deformed and retarded: “The three gibbering, fumbling creatures, with their enlarged heads and wasted bodies, were contemplating the future.” The analytical machinery was recording prophecies, and as the three precog idiots talked, the machinery carefully listened. They live in the police building, in the area called “monkey block”. They are not regarded as living beings, just three idiots, who produce different variants of future and according to their predictions majority and minority reports are made.
