Prison officers across England and Wales are to use tech to predict risks posed by offenders and inform decisions on supervision in aim to cut rates of crime and reoffending
The Ministry of Justice has published its AI action plan, outlining the ways it aims to use artificial intelligence to cut crime and deliver justice more swiftly.
Photo by Rainer Bleek / Unsplash
One notable aspect of the plan is the intention to use AI across prisons, probation and courts to better track offenders and assess the risk they pose. A significant element of this is the AI-powered violence predictor, which analyses a prisoner’s age, previous involvement in violent incidents while in custody and other facts to assess the threat they pose. That will in turn enable prison officers to better assess threat levels on wings, moving prisoners or otherwise making interventions before violence can escalate.
Another AI tool cited in the plan aims to tackle a major source of violence in prison: the use of mobile phones for gang activity, drug trafficking and intimidation. The tool will digitally scan the contents of phones seized from prisoners and flag messages that could provide intelligence such as code words using in planning or committing crimes. Again, this will enable staff to uncover potential threats before they occur – from violence to other inmates or prison officers, the smuggling in of weapons or contraband, or plans to escape.
A pilot programme of such AI-drive language analysis has already assessed more than 8.6m messages from 33,000 seized phones.
The action plan also outlines how the Ministry of Justice will create a single digital ID for all offenders, using AI to help link separate records across courts, prisons and probation for the first time. The new system can match records even where there are typos or missing words, providing a marked improvement on previous search systems, while providing greater monitoring and more effective sentencing.
The Probation Service has already carried out pilots of such AI tools, resulting in a 50% reduction in time spent note-taking time. That in turn frees officers to devote more attention to such matters as risk management, monitoring and face-to-face meetings with offenders. Given this success, the tool will now be rolled out to all probation officers and may be extended to prisons and courts, too.
What’s more, the action plan explains how technology is expected to ease pressure on courts and improve services for the public, such as through a digital assistant being developed to help families resolve child arrangement disputes outside of court.
Shabana Mahmood MP, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, says: ‘Artificial intelligence will transform the justice system. We are embracing its full potential as part of our Plan for Change. These tools are already fighting violence in prisons, tracking offenders, and releasing our staff to focus on what they do best: cutting crime and making our streets safer.’
Alexander Iosad, Director of Government Innovation Policy at the Tony Blair Institute, adds: ‘This action plan shows exactly the kind of ambition we need across government to embrace AI for a genuine renewal of our public services. If implemented well and at pace, these technologies won’t just ease the pressure on our prisons but also help offenders receive the personalised support they need for effective rehabilitation, making streets safer, and ensuring that victims facing incredibly difficult moments get the justice they deserve. This is what modern, data-driven public service reform to deliver real change for citizens should look like.’
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