In more practical terms, what can staff expect to change? Some of the work highlighted in the action plan includes:
Creating a single offender identify across the CJS so that, in theory, workers for any agency (police, probation, prison, CPS, courts) should be able to see records of all an individual’s contacts with the justice system. The new system uses Splink, open-source data linking software developed by MOJ data scientists which will apply explainable machine learning to deduplicate records and ensure accuracy.
Make AI productivity tools available to all staff across the CJS. Building on recent pilots, these tools are designed to support staff in a wide range of everyday tasks: from drafting emails and summarising documents to managing inboxes, redacting information, and generating reports.
There is an aspiration for both prison and probation staff to use AI-powered search to identify risk indicators or rehabilitation opportunities, and enable caseworkers “to swiftly locate relevant guidance or evidence, saving valuable time and improving decision-making“.
Conclusion
It is fair to say that the MoJ has been quicker than many expected in developing this approach to AI; it will be interesting to see how it will be rolled out and what impact it will have on the day to day lives of prison and probation staff and the offenders in their care.
Thanks to Igor Omilaev for kind permission to use the header image in this post which was previously published on Unsplash.