Technology in Probation Expert Meeting: presentations now available!

A lot of new and inspiring technologies are under development within Europe. At the same time there is a lot of discussion around the topics security and ethics. These topics were also part of discussion during the Expert Meeting. The Finish Director General Mr. Esa Vesterbacka visited the meeting and stated the fact that technology can be a good tool in the work with clients, but the face-to-face meeting are still the most powerful tool.

New technologies

The amount of participant that are creating apps is high. The apps produced by Northern Ireland, Finland and Sweden al have the goal to support the offenders in their rehabilitation process.

Another technical innovation was presented by the Dutch Probation Service: the alcoholmeter. This is an ankle bracelet that is able to measure if the offender drinks alcohol and the amount of alcohol that is in their blood. The Netherlands is also experimenting with the use of artificial intelligence. This technique will provide the probation officers with analyses based on big data. This gives them the opportunity to compare their professional judgement with analysis based on similar cases from the past.

The Swedish Probation service, not only presented their app, but also showed the participants how they use Skype in their probation services. The geographical distances in in the northern part of Sweden make it hard for clients to visit the Probation office as often as they should. Not all the meetings are replaces by Skype calls. They are combined with meetings at the probation office.

Presentations

Presentation Pia Andersson ‘The Finnish Probation Service and its development work’

Presentation Hannah Graham ‘Using technology in Probation: Reflections on the evidence and questions for probation work’

Presentation Pauli Nieminen ‘Development of Services and Service Charts’

Presentation Rikku Pammo ‘Current status of ICT and future development in the Finnish Criminal Sanctions Agency’

Presentation Gail McGreevy ‘Supporting Engagement with Service Users; Changing Lives App’

Presentation Coki Jannsen and Anne Hoeksema ‘Alcoholmeter 2018’

Presentation Mattias Persson and Håkan Klarin ‘A Swedish perspective on clients use of technology challenges and advantages

Presentation Tim Praagman and Deborah Thompson ‘ Using Big Data in Probation to Speed up Justice Chain Processes’

Presentation Emīls Kālis ‘Computerized Adaptive Testing Environment for Clients’

Presentation Bernd Glaeser ‘Technical solutions in probation – what we have and what we wish to achieve’