Why Probation Leaders Should Adopt AI Now.

AI in Probation; Should You Wait?

AI is a hot topic in probation. Caseloads are high, staffing is low, and more pressure it being put on officers to produce quality documentation every day. AI seems like a great solution for that!

But naturally, there’s fear that AI might hinder officers’ ability to become experts. If the AI does the thinking, how do officers learn the skills they need to help their clients succeed?

Because of that, most probation chiefs I talk to are in “wait and see” mode. They want to see how other agencies adapt to AI - where they succeed and where they go wrong.

If you’re in this camp, give me a chance to argue why I think you’re making a mistake.

Improving Outcomes

I think we’ll mostly agree that probation officers’ job is to help clients achieve a successful program discharge. A great officer will even reduce recidivism.

To help officers do this, we’ve spent decades crafting evidence-based practices that increase the likelihood of a successful discharge!

The bad news is that officers have limited ability to use EBPs. Why?

Not because they don’t care or don’t know them.

Instead, because large caseloads mean less time per person. How much time can a probation officer spend researching, preparing, and reacting to the needs of a client If they have 15 more clients they’re meeting with on the same day?

Every day, officers are drowning in work that prevents them from utilizing EBPs.

On average, an officer will spend 25 hours a week on documentation! We’re talking about case notes, criminal history summaries, court dockets, violation reports, and more.

With all of that on one officer’s plate, how much EBP can we really expect?

This is the most obvious place AI can help. 60-70% of the work officers do is either reading or writing documentation. That means they only have 15 hours a week to focus on directly helping clients.

AI can help your team do that compliance and documentation work significantly faster leaving more time for officers to engage deeply with clients.

AI tools like CaseBase are built specifically to help probation officers with the workflows that take up the most of their time. From drafting case notes, to writing court dockets, to creating criminal history summaries, to reviewing interlock reports, officers can save 10+ hours a week on administrative work.

10 hours saved a week means officers have nearly DOUBLE the time they have now to focus on clients.

But, I have a feeling you already know all of this and your concern isn’t about the capabilities of AI.

Adapting to AI

Your concern is that your officers will lose the skills and human touch they need to make clients successful. While AI will save them time, removing officers from the practice of documentation will eat away at what makes them effective.

Maybe you think officers won’t know the details about their clients?

You could be concerned that officers will forget how to present well in court?

Perhaps you’re worried that officers won’t develop their critical thinking skills?

If this is how you feel, you’re not alone.

You’ve probably thought about which officers you’re concerned about and which officers you’re not concerned about.

You know your best officers will utilize AI as a tool to help make their work better. But you also think some of your officers will use AI so they can check out.

This is a real concern.

And the reality is, AI is a force multiplier. Not a magic box that an officer can use to generate good outcomes while they sit back and relax.

The work your officers do is deeply human. AI can’t and won’t replace that. You need officers who can work effectively with clients to elicit behavioral change.

AI gives your officers the opportunity to do MORE of this. AI is NOT a replacement for this.

AI will let your officers look at your clients in the eyes instead of at their computer.

AI will let your officers focus on listening to clients and using their motivational interviewing skills to gain a deeper understanding of their needs.

AI will let your officers spend the 10 minutes they have before the next client comes into their office researching all the important details about them, so their meeting is evidence based rather than compliance driven.

This is how AI will help your team improve outcomes. Not by replacing officers, but by giving them the tools which expand their capacity to use evidence-based practices.

The real challenge you’ll face as a probation leader is making sure you train your team how to use AI properly to be effective.

Why You Should Start Using AI Now

THIS is why it’s so important to adopt AI now rather than waiting.

We’re still in the early days of AI. But being early is an advantage for you. Why?

First, adopting AI now gives you the opportunity to train your staff how to use AI effectively and build the policies, procedures, and trainings you need to promote the beneficial use of AI.

Your officers are already using AI to help with their work. But rather than using a tool that you’ve helped create, you understand and you can guide, officers are using free tools that aren’t aligned with the way you operate.

The earlier you implement your own system that you control and work with officers to use it effectively the earlier you’ll start to see better outcomes.

It will likely take 6 months to 1 year before things start to click. There will be mistakes, growing pains, and disagreements. But this won’t go away by waiting. It will just delay the discomfort!

Second, adopting AI now gives YOU the opportunity to shape the way AI systems are built for probation. Technology companies like CaseBase are working overtime to build AI that helps officers improve outcomes as much as possible.

To do that your feedback is crucial. Leaders like you have decades of experience to draw from. You know what things work and what don’t. You know what you’d change if you had better tools.

You can better influence the development of AI around what you know works if you start using it sooner rather than later. The longer you wait means AI will be built around the feedback and expectations of other people.

Then when you finally decide to make the jump, your team will have to adapt to what’s been built for other people.

What Next?

You want better outcomes and you know how AI can help with that, but you also have totally rational concerns. Adopting AI properly to help improve outcomes isn’t easy.

But being a chief isn’t easy! You’ve dedicated your life to doing hard things to eliciting behavioral change with the people you supervise.

If you didn’t care about better outcomes, you wouldn’t have put in the work it takes to get to where you are now.

This is why I urge you to get AI integrated into your agency as soon as possible. While implementing AI will take meaningful effort from you, it will have an outsized impact on your teams ability to improve outcomes.

There will be growing pains, no doubt. But the earlier you start working on it, the earlier you’ll see the results you want to.

If you’re a chief probation officer considering adopting AI for your probation agency, I’m here to help guide you through it.

Contact me at tyler@casebase.co for a completely free, no strings attached consulting sessions on any topic related to AI in probation. I want to help you improve outcomes, and I believe there’s nothing better than combining great officers with AI to do this.