UK prisons turn to AI to predict and prevent inmate attacks on officers due to safety failures

As violence against jail staff rises and much-needed stab vests are nowhere to be found, officers are turning to AI to predict and prevent violence against them.

This initiative comes from the UK’s Ministry of Justice (MoJ) as part of an “action plan” to include AI in the criminal justice system. The AI violence predictor will analyze a prisoner’s age, drug use, type of offences, and previous involvement in violent incidents while in custody.

The results of this analysis should relieve some problematic aspects within the current justice system:

• It should more accurately predict the risk that inmates pose. This should lead to them being transferred to jails of different security levels, separated from groups, or placed in special separation units.
• AI is expected to process information and write reports for judges who lack time to summarize or clarify the key points from certain cases and help compose decisions.

• AI will be used to scan data in phones confiscated from people serving time, looking for codewords and signs of dealing drugs, drone drops, or planned violence.

• It should assist staff to discover potential threats of violence to other inmates or prison officers, as well as plots to escape or smuggle in weapons, reports the Telegraph.

This news comes in the context of previously reported cases of prison officers being on duty without wearing any stab vests, although they had been promised to be issued two months ago. Three officers were attacked with makeshift knives by Hashem Abedi, the Manchester Arena terrorist.

The MoJ is also planning a digital ID for all offenders. This tool would help create a network in which separate records could be linked across courts, prisons, and probation institutions for the first time.

Right now, there is a chance some offenses may never be linked, as the current search system fails to match offenses if there is a slight typo or missing word. The new AI-supported system should ensure prisons, probation, and courts have full details on any offender and thus allow them to be correctly sentenced.