After a government uses nanotechnology to liberate its citizens from an extinction level pandemic and subsequently other diseases, it tries to use the same technology in an attempt to purge the world of crime, inciting civil war. Some believe that the sin of mankind brought about the earth's purging system, a virus, that put humanity on the endangered species list. Scientists intervened, using nanotechnology to fortify the immune system. Now, the same technology is used for "rehabilitation," a criminality deterrent. Prisons have been emptied and defunded in favor of it, but it prevents crime by manipulating free will.
—Anthony W Preston