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Technology

Technology Items

2018 and newer

Artificial Intelligence

Digital life is augmenting human capacities and disrupting eons-old human activities. Code-driven systems have spread to more than half of the world’s inhabitants in ambient information and connectivity, offering previously unimagined opportunities and unprecedented threats. As emerging algorithm-driven artificial intelligence (AI) continues to spread, will people be better off than they are today?

Public Attitudes Toward Computer Algorithms

Algorithms are all around us, utilizing massive stores of data and complex analytics to make decisions with often significant impacts on humans. They recommend books and movies for us to read and watch, surface news stories they think we might find relevant, estimate the likelihood that a tumor is cancerous and predict whether someone might be a criminal or a worthwhile credit risk. But despite the growing presence of algorithms in many aspects of daily life, a Pew Research Center survey of U.S.

Older Americans' Use of Facebook Up From 2011

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Facebook has consistently been most popular with younger adults aged 18 to 29, but the percentage of this group who use it -- currently 72% -- has not changed significantly since Gallup last measured it in 2011. Meanwhile, each older age group has shown significant growth in Facebook use since that time.

The greatest increase in Facebook use from 2011 to 2018 has been among adults aged 50 to 64. This group's rate of use has grown from about a third in 2011 to more than half today. Retirement-age adults have nearly doubled their rate of use.

Driverless Cars Are a Tough Sell to Americans

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Local Government Technology: Across America

Technology is transforming both the business and leadership of state and local government. Whether it’s service delivery, empowering employees or interacting with the public, infusing what the public sector does with technological innovation is now an expectation. Route Fifty hit the road to meet with the innovators and technologists leading this change and to discuss some of the biggest themes in government technology.

Emerging Technology Trends and Their Impact on Criminal Justice

Key Findings

The criminal-justice arena faces an abundance of information technology opportunities. However, important barriers, including a lack of business cases; a lack of implementation plans and procedures; and a lack of security, privacy, and civil-rights protections, hinder its ability to take advantage of those opportunities.

Agencies need to develop business cases and common processes for implementing new technologies.

Research is needed to improve sharing of criminal-justice technology among practitioners and researchers.

The Use of Technology in the Clinical Care of Depression: An Evidence Map

Abstract

Objective: Depression is a highly prevalent clinical condition. The use of technologies in the clinical care of depressive disorders may increase the reach of clinical services for these disorders and support more comprehensive treatment. The objective of this evidence map is to provide an overview of the use of technology in the clinical care of depression.

Data Sources: The authors searched PubMed, PsycINFO, and the Web of Science from inception to June 2017 to identify published randomized controlled trials (RCTs).

10 tech-related trends that shaped the decade

The tech landscape has changed dramatically over the past decade, both in the United States and around the world. There have been notable increases in the use of social media and online platforms (including YouTube and Facebook) and technologies (like the internet, cellphones and smartphones), in some cases leading to near-saturation levels of use among major segments of the population. But digital tech also faced significant backlash in the 2010s. See Full Report

Leveraging Technology to Enhance Community Supervision

Key Findings

Technology solutions could improve officer safety and skills

More Than Half of U.S. Adults Trust Law Enforcement to Use Facial Recognition Responsibly

The ability of governments and law enforcement agencies to monitor the public using facial recognition was once the province of dystopian science fiction. But modern technology is increasingly bringing versions of these scenarios to life. A recent investigation found that U.S. law enforcement agencies are using state Department of Motor Vehicles records to identify individual Americans without their consent, including those with no criminal record.

Countering Threats to Correctional Institution Security

Some threats to correctional institutional security — e.g., violence, escape attempts, contraband — are as old as the institutions themselves, while other threats — e.g., computer hacking, synthetic drugs, cell phones, drones — have evolved with societal and technological changes. Many of these threats present risks to public safety as a whole.

Facing the Future: U.S., U.K. and Canadian citizens call for a unified skills strategy for the AI age

Representing the views of 10,000 adults in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K., and including interviews with chief human resources officers at 10 large corporations based in these three countries, this study from Northeastern University and Gallup measures perceptions of the impact of artificial intelligence on jobs, as well as the education choices respondents would make in response and their confidence in higher education, government and business to plan for widespread AI adoption.

Key findings:

How Libraries are Embracing Artificial Intelligence

In Roanoke County, Virginia, a trip to the public library might include reading, online research, 3D printing—and, since last summer, the opportunity to chat with Pepper, a 4-foot-tall humanoid robot who sings, dances and teaches coding classes.

Trends in the Information Technology sector

The U.S. leads the global landscape in technology innovation. The country’s competitive edge, according to the World Economic Forum’s 2018 Global Competitive Index, is due to its business dynamism, strong institutional pillars, financing mechanisms, and vibrant innovation ecosystem.[1] Innovation is a trademark feature of American competitiveness and has powered its global dominance since the post-World-War industrial revolution.

Incorporating Location Tracking Systems Into Community Supervision

For several decades, supervision agencies have been leveraging a variety of technological innovations to better manage justice-involved individuals in the community. Perhaps no tool has captured the imagination of the criminal justice professionals and the public alike as much as location tracking system (LTS) technology, first introduced in 1996. The ability to track an individual in near-real time represented a substantial improvement over the previous technology, which was limited to monitoring an individual’s presence at a fixed location, usually the home.

6 Keys to a Tech-Friendly Workplace Culture

Agility requires fast, innovative, customer-centric tech -- and workers aren't ready for it.

Though 73% of U.S. workers say artificial intelligence will eliminate more jobs than it creates, just 18% say they are "extremely confident" they could secure the training they need for digitalization, according to a Gallup/Northeastern University study, Optimism and Anxiety: Views on the Impact of Artificial Intelligence and Higher Education's Response.

Research on body‐worn cameras What we know, what we need to know

This article provides a comprehensive narrative review of the research on evidence base for body‐worn cameras (BWCs). Seventy empirical studies of BWCs were examined covering the impact of cameras on officer behavior, officer perceptions, citizen behavior, citizen perceptions, police investigations, and police organizations. Although officers and citizens are generally supportive of BWC use, BWCs have not had statistically significant or consistent effects on most measures of officer and citizen behavior or citizens’ views of police.

Top 10 Emerging Technologies 2020

Experts highlight advances with the potential to revolutionize industry, healthcare and society if some of the many thousands of human volunteers needed to test coronavirus vaccines could have been replaced by digital replicas – one of this year’s Top 10 Emerging Technologies – COVID-19 vaccines might have been developed even faster, saving untold lives. Soon virtual clinical trials could be a reality for testing new vaccines and therapies.

Court Appearances in Criminal Proceedings Through Telepresence

Local jurisdictions, faced with caseloads of increasing complexity and cost, have adopted alternative approaches to criminal case processing — including the use of new technologies — that have the potential to reduce backlog and improve judicial efficiency. Telepresence technology, which allows an individual or group of individuals to appear in a court proceeding from a remote location, is one example of such a technology.

Unlocking Technology for the Global Goals

The potential of Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies to tackle major global challenges – such as poverty, climate change, nature loss and inequality – is immense, yet this potential is far from being reached. To this end, the Forum’s Centre for Global Public Goods is scaling up efforts to proactively engage stakeholders to channel Fourth Industrial Revolution innovations towards positive social, economic and environmental outcomes through a series of initiatives.

Wearable Sensor Technology and Potential Uses Within Law Enforcement

Many wearable sensor technology (WST) devices on the market enable individuals and organizations to track and monitor personal health metrics in real time. These devices are worn by the user and contain sensors to capture various biomarkers.

Many Tech Experts Say Digital Disruption Will Hurt Democracy

The years of almost unfettered enthusiasm about the benefits of the internet have been followed by a period of techlash as users worry about the actors who exploit the speed, reach and complexity of the internet for harmful purposes. Over the past four years – a time of the Brexit decision in the United Kingdom, the American presidential election and a variety of other elections – the digital disruption of democracy has been a leading concern.

Advancing Technological Equity for Incarcerated College Students

Higher education programs that teach in prisons take on a near impossible task: to provide their students with a high-quality education, equal to anything beyond the prison walls, while working under strict constraints. Incarcerated students rarely have access to learning resources typically taken for granted on the outside—computers, books, and internet access are all heavily restricted by various state Departments of Corrections (DOC)—and instructors must work with and around DOC security protocols while planning and teaching their classes.

Check out previous Environmental Scans

The National Institute of Corrections publishes this compilation of resources each year as an overview of what research indicates to be the trends in the corrections industry each year.
Accession Number: (2018) 033176, (2019) 033431, (2020) 033563, (2021) 033670, (2022) 033086, (2023) 033087