A criminology expert from De Montfort University (DMU) Leicester has warned that the criminal justice system may lose key human elements of support if too many digital tools are implemented too quickly.
Dr Victoria Knight, an Associate Professor in Research for the Community and Criminal Justice at DMU, was invited to the United Nations’ (UN) International Centre in Vienna, Austria, to work on the development of a new handbook that will provide practical, legal and ethical guidance for digitising criminal justice systems across the globe.
Commissioned by the UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the International Committee of the Red Cross, the handbook is being produced by experts, including Dr Knight, from around the world.
But Dr Knight has stated that the guidance produced in the handbook must ensure that face-to-face exchanges are protected and that models operate within the law to protect the individual rights of prisoners, those on probation and those working within the justice system.
She said: “If we hurtle down this road too quickly, we’re going to get it wrong. We don’t want to get to a point where someone who goes to prison can only interact with services through a smartphone or tablet.
“There is a temptation to look at technology to resolve some of the pressures that our prisons face. There is a need to make services more efficient and more cost-effective but we also need to avoid a future where technology replaces the role of humans.
“We need human prison guards and medical teams keeping our prisons secure and safer. We need human judgment when it comes to sentencing, parole and rehabilitation.
“Prisoners also need physical, human interaction with other people. In some jails in the US, for example, face-to-face visits have been replaced with video calls. That in itself is, I think, problematic to eliminate that face-to-face contact. I feel that the right approach is that digital tools complement and support humans flourish.”
The road map to digitising prisons is filled with many legal and ethical considerations. In the UK and EU, a prisoner's personal data, including criminal conviction data, must be processed and stored legally under GDPR regulations.
The rising integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into the criminal justice system also poses legal and ethical issues. In December 2025, UNESCO published its own guidance on the use of AI systems in courts and tribunals as countries start working through their backlog of court cases.
Within prisons, AI has the potential to analyse inmates’ personal history to predict the risk of violence or be used to understand the contents of confiscated mobile phones. It is also starting to be used in pilot educational rehabilitation programmes.
While digital tools such as tablets and smartphones can help rehabilitate prisoners and allow them to better integrate into an increasingly digital world, Dr Knight hopes that the development of this handbook will ensure that technology is implemented fairly throughout the world, protecting the principles of human rights in all countries.
She added: “Technology will be a feature of the future, but human rights and human need must remain at the heart of justice. People first, not technology.
“This handbook is going to be extensive and ensure that certain practices are followed to ensure against further harm to all stakeholders.
“It’s going to include examples of how it can be done and how it can be done responsibly and in line with things like human rights.
“For example, in Thailand, they realised that inmates released from prison often go into selling food. They trained them on e-commerce platforms, including an app called Robinhood, to market their business and sell online, as well as manage their money through the platform.”
Posted on Monday 19 January 2026