By Redden, J., Banks, D.,   

Key Takeaways ¡ AI has the potential to transform many aspects of the court system in the years to come. Although not yet ubiquitous, AI-enabled tools are already being used in various applications relevant to the court system. ¡ AI-enabled tools may address pressing needs within the court system—including managing staffing and resources, processing digital information, improving court operations, managing cases, maintaining accountability, and creating partnerships and collaboration. ¡ AI systems that provide recommendations or predictions in the context of the court system should be approached with caution and evaluated carefully. ¡ Deploying AI-enabled tools effectively requires investing in a strategy for the operational, procedural, and change management efforts required for successful implementation. This technology brief is the third in a four-part series that examines artificial intelligence (AI) applications in the criminal justice system. This brief focuses on AI applications within criminal courts, with particular emphasis on AI’s role in addressing prosecutorial needs. These AI applications and associated needs may also be relevant to other types of courts, such as traffic and civil courts, as well as to other officers of the court—including defense counsel, judges, and court administrators. It also introduces frameworks for evaluating AI applications and highlights critical risks to consider when deploying AI systems. Although many of the examples in this brief have not yet been widely adopted, AI has the potential to address various needs within the court system. Additional briefs include a high-level overview of AI within the criminal justice system and AI topics specifically related to law enforcement and corrections

  The courts play a critical role in the criminal justice system in ensuring the fair and impartial administration of justice for all. As AI becomes more prevalent across society, many criminal justice leaders are asking if AI-enabled technologies can help improve the court system. In other industries, AI has dramatically increased efficiency, expanded capabilities, and automated repetitive or mundane tasks. In the years ahead, AI will likely impact many aspects of the court system, including the prosecution and defense of crimes and the practice of law in both private and public service settings. This brief (1) offers mental models for leaders in the criminal court system to use when evaluating AI applications, (2) presents example AI applications and use cases, and (3) highlights key risk considerations within the criminal courts context.

Criminal Justice Testing (and Evaluation Consortium . 2020. 11p.

By Ella White, Abbie Foulger, Katie Beacham and Sarah Colover. Oli Hutt and Alex Stacey 

Video first response (VFR) is a virtual police response to eligible non-emergency domestic abuse calls for service that uses video conferencing software. The evaluation of VFR aimed to understand the impact of the initial police response to domestic abuse calls being conducted via video. The quality and victim perceptions of the initial police VFR and criminal justice outcomes were compared with an in-person, business as usual response (BAU). The research involved two pilot forces, with a randomised control trial in one force and a quasi-experiment in the other. The research compared data from police systems, case file reviews, a victim survey, and interviews with officers and stakeholders. Meta-analysis The meta-analysis aimed to provide an aggregated assessment of the outcome measures from:  the two pilot forces in this evaluation  the evaluation of rapid video response (RVR) conducted in Kent Police in 2021 The meta-analysis found:  Time taken to both respond to and resolve a call for service was significantly faster for VFR, compared to BAU.  Differences in arrest rates between VFR and BAU cases were not statistically significant. However, the meta-analysis found a statistically significant difference between the pilot studies. This reflects the mixed results between pilot studies. The Kent pilot found a significantly higher arrest rate in VFR cases. The West Yorkshire pilot found a significantly higher arrest rate in BAU cases. The West Midlands pilot found that VFR cases had a similar arrest rate to BAU, with no statistical difference between them.  No statistically significant difference was found in victim satisfaction between the VFR cases and BAU overall.Findings from the VFR evaluation Impact on quality of initial police response  VFR response can speed up response times – response times increased significantly in both forces.  VFR may affect whether or not an incident is ‘crimed’. In one force, more BAU cases were reported as a crime than VFR cases, while the other force showed no difference. High levels of missing data may have affected these findings.  VFR may improve the quality of risk assessment. Appropriately detailed risk assessment forms were significantly more likely in VFR conditions in one of the pilot forces. The other force showed no difference between VFR and BAU.  The findings were mostly in favour of VFR victims having more positive safeguarding outcomes. In both forces, case file review data suggested that more safeguarding referrals were made in VFR cases, compared to BAU cases. In one force, the case file review found that information on support services was more likely to be shared with victims who had a VFR response compared to those who had a BAU response. In the other force, the victim survey found that more BAU victims said they were referred to an independent domestic violence adviser (IDVA) compared to VFR victims. However, the sample size was small for both the case file review and victim survey. Impact on criminal justice outcomes  Arrest rate and time taken to arrest differed in the pilot forces. For one force, VFR had a similar arrest rate to BAU cases, with VFR having a shorter time to arrest compared to BAU. In the other force, the arrest rate was higher for BAU, which also had a shorter time to arrest compared to VFR.  In both forces, VFR cases had a similar charge rate and outcome 16 rate (victim chooses not to support, or withdraws support for, further police action) to BAU.  

College of Policing. college.police.uk. September 2025

By Hedwig Lee, Alexandra Gibbons, Garrett Baker and Christopher Wildeman

Twenty-five years ago, Bruce Western and Katherine Beckett (1999) provided the seed of what would come to be a novel area of inquiry: the consequences of the carceral state for inequality. In this article, we review in four stages the last twenty-five years of research on the fallout from criminal justice system contact. In the first stage, we describe the contours of the carceral state to highlight how prevalent each level of criminal justice contact is today relative to earlier historical eras and to each other and how unequally distributed these levels of criminal justice contact are by race, ethnicity, and class. In the second stage, we consider the questions often left unaddressed in prior work, including our own prior work: why might we expect racial differences in the effects of criminal justice contact, and are there racial differences in the effects of criminal justice contact? In the third stage, we provide a discussion of the datasets and methods used to consider these relationships. In the fourth stage, we consider the direct and vicarious effects of contact with the police, experiencing prison or jail incarceration, and being placed on community supervision using evidence spanning several disciplines. By providing a review that is exhaustive in terms of levels of criminal justice contact, limitations of data and methods, and the existence of race-specific effects, we offer a comprehensive description of the state of scientific research on the scope and scale of criminal justice contact and its collateral consequences for inequality in the United States. 

” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 11(3): 174–229.

By MAHESH K. NALLA, DAE H. CHANG, LISA SUTTER, and WAYNE W. DUNNING

In 2001, the Universidade Catolica Portuguesa3 published a report regard- ing victimization in the city of Lisbon. The survey was requested by the mayoral office as a means to examine crime rates in the city. Previous research had depended entirely on official police reports4, and it was felt that these failed to adequately measure victimization in the city. In a study of 3,505 residents, the victimization rate was relatively low; approximately 17% of the respondents had been victimized during 2001. Comparatively, the fear of crime was higher. Respondents were asked about how safe they felt in Lisbon and in their neighborhoods. More than 60% of respondents reported feeling unsafe to very unsafe in the city, and over one third of the respondents report- ed feeling unsafe in their neighborhoods. With such a low rate of victimiza- tion, what contributed to these feelings regarding respondents' safety? In their multi-level theory of victimization, Wilcox et al. (2003) posit that contextual factors, and more specifically measures of social disorganization in addition to victimization, influence an individual's fear of crime.

However, given the low victimization rate in Lisbon, where there is little racial heterogeneity° , it is arguable that conditions of social disorganization as stipulated by Shaw and MacKay (1942), Sampson and Groves (1989), and more recently Sampson et al. (1997) exist in Lisbon. Therefore, a different perspective needs to be adopt- ed to explain the observed relationship between victimization and fear of crime.

Official Journal for the American Society of Criminology, Division of International Criminology, Volume 30, Number 1, Spring 2006, 143p.