An AI Taxonomy for Criminal Justice

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools are supporting a growing range of activities in policing, courts, corrections, and community supervision, from facial recognition and automated police report writing to case scheduling, classification, and violence prediction. This RAND report, produced for the Council on Criminal Justice Task Force on Artificial Intelligence, says that while these applications differ widely in their technical sophistication, intended use, and influence on human judgment, they are often discussed and governed as if they were a single category of technology.

As a result, there is limited shared understanding of how different AI tools function, where they are deployed, and how their risks and benefits vary across the criminal justice system. Closing this gap in understanding is essential to help system leaders and policymakers evaluate whether specific AI tools are appropriate, effective, transparent, and equitable—particularly in decisions that affect public safety and individual rights.

This report examines the scope and character of AI use in the criminal justice system by presenting a taxonomy of current and emerging AI applications and offering findings and recommendations for navigating risks, opportunities, and governance gaps. The taxonomy groups applications by the functions and decision points they support, illuminating uses across law enforcement, courts, corrections, and community supervision and reflecting how similar technologies may serve different purposes across settings. It is designed to support stakeholders responsible for evaluating, procuring, and implementing AI technologies, as well as state policy officials making technology decisions for their justice systems.

The CCJ Task Force on AI was launched in June 2025 to develop principles, standards, and research guidance for AI use in the criminal justice system. The Task Force has also produced Assessing AI for Criminal Justice: A User Decision Framework. This taxonomy describes the landscape of AI tools in criminal justice; the framework offers practitioners and policymakers a process for evaluating, deploying, and overseeing these tools in practice.