{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/probation-officers-and-correctional-treatment-specialists/", "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology", "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.", "scored_at": "2026-08-11", "model": "claude-opus-5", "occupation": { "title": "Probation Officers and Correctional Treatment Specialists", "soc_code": "21-1092", "category": "Social Service", "us_employment": 89390, "median_annual_wage": 66270 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 58, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 10, "embodiment": 12, "liability_shield": 9, "trust_premium": 12, "judgment_accountability": 15 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Roughly half your week — PSI narratives, chronological case notes, violation petitions, condition-compliance checklists, and the LSI-R/COMPAS scoring itself — runs off structured intake data that a model drafts competently, which pulls this well below 14; the field-contact half (unannounced home visits, observed urinalysis, hands-on searches, court testimony) is what keeps it out of the 0-6 band.", "embodiment": "You drive to residences and job sites in neighborhoods you don't control, collect observed urine samples, sometimes carry and effect arrests on a bench warrant, and transport offenders — real uncontrolled-environment work, but it's bracketed by courthouse hearings and desk hours on the case management system, so it lands at 12 rather than the 16+ of a patrol deputy who is outdoors the entire shift.", "liability_shield": "There's no state practice licence you personally hold at risk; entry usually requires a bachelor's plus a state academy and POST-style certification, and revocation risk runs through your employing agency and civil-service discipline rather than a board that can end your career independently — certification-preferred territory, not licensed-professional immunity.", "trust_premium": "The supervision relationship does real work — a probationer who talks to you about a relapse instead of absconding is a product of months of face-to-face rapport, and judges weight your PSI recommendation partly because they know you — but the relationship is court-ordered rather than chosen, caseloads of 80-150 cap how much of it you can build, and reassignment on transfer is routine, which keeps this at 12.", "judgment_accountability": "You decide whether a positive test becomes a warning, a treatment referral, or a revocation petition that sends someone back to prison, and you write the sentencing recommendation the court usually follows — the override authority over the actuarial score is explicitly yours, and the consequences of getting it wrong appear in the newspaper, which is what puts this at 15 despite the structure that departmental violation matrices impose." }, "rationale": "A large share of the day is documentation — presentence investigation reports, case notes, chronologies, violation reports — and actuarial risk scoring (LSI-R, COMPAS) that is already algorithmic and drafts well from structured inputs. What does not automate is the field half: home and workplace visits, drug testing, arresting or detaining violators, sitting with a defendant's family, and testifying in court. The occupation is also a state function with civil-service and often union protection, which slows headcount cuts even as per-officer caseloads absorb the productivity gain.", "outlook": "Headcount holds roughly flat under civil-service inertia while caseloads per officer rise, and the job shifts from report-writing to field contact, revocation decisions, and treatment coordination.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "A state statute or judicial-branch rule requiring that presentence investigation reports and probation revocation recommendations be authored and signed by a sworn officer, with AI-generated content disclosed on the face of the document — the pattern already visible in court AI-disclosure orders (federal district judges' standing orders on generative AI, Texas 5th Circuit rulemaking) and in state pretrial algorithm statutes (e.g. Idaho HB 118 requiring transparency and barring sole reliance on risk tools). If the signature is attributable and challengeable on appeal, the human is structurally load-bearing.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Classification of recidivism/needs risk assessment as a high-risk or prohibited-without-human-review use — the EU AI Act already lists risk assessment of natural persons for reoffending as high-risk, and Colorado SB 24-205 style state AI acts extend duties to consequential government decisions. A US state adopting a mandatory documented human override step on any AI-generated supervision-level or violation recommendation converts a drafting tool into something a named officer must adjudicate.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Extension of the Wisconsin v. Loomis holding (risk score may not be determinative) into an affirmative rule that the officer must state independent reasons for a supervision or revocation recommendation, reviewable at hearing. Also raised if state legislatures narrow qualified immunity or create a duty-to-supervise cause of action after a high-profile failure-to-revoke case, making the discretionary call personally consequential.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Genuine two-tier occupation: chronologies, case notes, PSI narrative assembly and actuarial scoring are the routine tier. If those are absorbed, the residual job is the tier AI cannot do at usable quality — motivational interviewing, cross-examinable court testimony, absconder location, family and employer negotiation, and the discretionary revocation call. Task-mix shift alone raises this without any new law, though it comes with caseload increases rather than headcount protection.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "embodiment", "change": "Contractual or statutory minimum face-to-face contact standards — American Probation and Parole Association contact-standard adoption, or a union contract (AFSCME, SEIU state corrections locals) specifying minimum in-person home/employment visits per supervision level and capping caseload per officer. Court consent decrees following supervision-failure litigation have imposed similar contact floors. This converts field work from discretionary to mandated.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "embodiment", "change": "Shift of drug testing, GPS/EM installation and compliance verification, and warrant service in-house rather than vendor-outsourced, as some states have done after monitoring-vendor scandals. Each is a physical task in an unpredictable environment that must be performed by the supervising agency.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 } ], "ceiling_note": "No plausible route on trust_premium. The buyer is the state, not the supervised person; there is no market in which a defendant or a court pays extra for a human probation officer, and civil-service structure means what protects headcount is union and statute, not preference. Treat the current 12 as the ceiling, not a floor to build on." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 87700, "wage": 51410 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 87660, "wage": 53020 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 88120, "wage": 54290 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 90070, "wage": 55690 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 92140, "wage": 60250 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 89920, "wage": 59860 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 85870, "wage": 61800 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 86820, "wage": 64520 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 89390, "wage": 66270 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": 1.9, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [ { "slug": "police-and-sheriff-s-patrol-officers", "title": "Police and Sheriff's Patrol Officers", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 82, "median_wage": 76210, "overlap": 81, "skills_to_close": [ "Management of Personnel Resources" ] }, { "slug": "detectives-and-criminal-investigators", "title": "Detectives and Criminal Investigators", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 69, "median_wage": 93790, "overlap": 79, "skills_to_close": [ "Learning Strategies", "Mathematics" ] }, { "slug": "marriage-and-family-therapists", "title": "Marriage and Family Therapists", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 74, "median_wage": 66940, "overlap": 79, "skills_to_close": [ "Operations Analysis", "Service Orientation", "Active Listening", "Learning Strategies" ] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }