After spending a full day attending the 2026 Modernising Criminal Justice conference, our Director of Justice & Security, Rob Pearson, came away with a key takeaway that reinforced something he’s long believed: justice is fundamentally about people.
It's about police officers, judges, prison and probation staff doing difficult jobs every day. It's about victims whose lives can be changed in an instant. And it's about supporting the rehabilitation of offenders to reduce harm and create better outcomes for society.
The role that AI can play to modernise justice
One theme that Rob felt came through strongly across the discussions is that victims, offenders and justice professionals alike need the right information, at the right time. Achieving that means looking beyond organisational boundaries and thinking about justice as an end-to-end journey, not a collection of separate institutions. And to make sure that’s possible, data needs to follow the journey and flow through the organisation, instead of stopping at the edges.
The reality is that too often the opposite is true.
Let’s take probation as an example. Before a probation officer can sit down with an offender and have the kind of conversation that could genuinely change a life, they need to embark on a treasure hunt for information. Critical data is spread across dozens of systems, records and sources; too much valuable time is spent navigating technology and completing administration, and not enough engaging with the person in front of them.
The cognitive load this creates is significant. Instead of concentrating on empathy, professional judgement, safeguarding and rehabilitation, skilled practitioners can find themselves acting as data gatherers and administrators. Many dedicated probation professionals joined the service with the strong purpose of helping people turn their lives around, but they end up spending their days navigating fragmented systems and duplicating effort. Reducing the burden technology places on frontline staff is no longer optional; it’s critical to enabling them to focus on the work that only humans can do.
Technology, and increasingly AI, has a significant role to play.
AI can do a lot of the heavy lifting: surfacing information, reducing administrative burden, summarising interactions and enabling professionals to spend more of their time focused on people rather than processes.
A prime example, discussed throughout the conference, was Justice Transcribe. This capability, already deployed by the Ministry of Justice within probation services, records and summarises meetings between probation officers and offenders. With more than 150,000 meetings transcribed, it already saved an estimated 25,000 hours of staff time. The same technology is now being explored within courts and tribunals, helping judges and legal professionals focus on hearings rather than note-taking. Early pilots have shown the potential to reduce administrative effort while improving access to information and supporting better decision-making.
Most importantly, this shows how AI can be used to augment professionals’ capability, not replace them.
As adoption grows, one thing that we need to be aware of is that the "human-in-the-loop" doesn’t become a compliance exercise or a tick-box activity. The gravity of decisions made across the justice system is simply too important for that.
Whether determining risk, making sentencing decisions, deciding probation interventions or assessing evidence, accountability must remain with people. AI can present information, identify patterns and support decision-making, but it cannot carry responsibility. Human judgement remains essential because people are complex, circumstances are nuanced and justice often requires balancing competing factors that cannot be reduced to an algorithm. Professionals need to retain the authority and accountability for “what happens on their watch.”
The hindrance: legacy technology
The other topic that surfaced repeatedly throughout the conference was legacy technology.
It’s perhaps the least glamorous aspect of digital justice reform, but it may be one of the most important.
Modern services, joined-up data, new capabilities and service reform are all significantly harder to deliver when organisations remain constrained by ageing technology and fragmented systems. Legacy technical debt rarely attracts headlines, yet it often determines whether transformation succeeds or fails.
Removing this debt isn’t simply a technology challenge but an enabler for better outcomes. True interoperability between police, courts, prisons, probation and wider justice partners is critical, so that information follows the individual rather than remains trapped within organisational silos.
Several discussions highlighted the importance of creating a more coherent view of individuals as they move through the justice system. A single identity model that follows an individual from police contact through courts, custody, probation and rehabilitation has the potential to transform information sharing, reduce duplication and improve decision-making across the entire justice journey. This is the main challenge: without this foundation, achieving genuinely joined-up justice services will remain difficult.
This is an area Rob is particularly passionate about, especially since working with the techUK Justice & Emergency Services Committee as they explore how technical debt, interoperability and data sharing can unlock better outcomes for citizens and frontline professionals alike.
The importance of trust in the justice system
Finally, there was one theme that underlined every discussion at the conference: trust. While fairness, impartiality, transparency, accountability and due process are the principles justice is built on, trust is what allows those principles to function in practice. Without trust even the best-designed justice system will struggle to deliver legitimate outcomes. The future, must deliver:
Trust in our institutions.
Trust in the data we use.
Trust in the technology we introduce.
And most importantly, trust in the justice system to deliver fair outcomes for the people it serves.
The conference left Rob optimistic. There are many challenges, but there is also a growing recognition and a laser focus across the sector that pushes justice not to rely on individual technologies or organisational reforms, but creating a more connected, trusted and human-centred system.
Justice reform starts and ends with people. Technology simply gives us the opportunity to serve them better.