This National Institute of Justice (NIJ) Update reports on the rationale for and features of NIJ's effort to conduct research in and deliver to practitioners the benefits of artificial-intelligence (AI) products and practices for use in community-based corrections.
As jurisdictions implement sentencing reforms and policies that reduce the use of incarceration, community corrections officers are supervising larger caseloads with higher risk offenders. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to be an invaluable resource for community supervision officers in monitoring offender behaviors and facilitating reentry programming. AI can assist community supervision officers In identifying offenders at immediate risk of reoffending and also reinforce reentry programming for an offender between programmed interactions with treatment providers and supervision officers. NIJ has sought field-tested AI uses in the following three areas: 1) Providing real-time risk-need-resource (RNR) assessments; 2) Promotion of intelligent offender tracking; and 3) Enhancing programming through mobile service delivery. Through its 2019 solicitation, NIJ funded two promising AI projects to advance the development of all three applications. These are described. With this new technology, it is envisioned that jurisdictions can experiment with corrections reform while promoting successful reentry and community supervision of higher risk offenders.