AI exposure: Correctional Officers and Jailers
Guard inmates in penal or rehabilitative institutions in accordance with established regulations and procedures. May guard prisoners in transit between jail, courtroom, prison, or other point. Includes deputy sheriffs and police who spend the majority of their time guarding prisoners in correctional institutions.
Reading this score
computedAt 13.4% of weighted task load, Correctional Officers and Jailers sits at the 21th percentile, below the point where a job's centre of gravity has moved. 72.1% of what this role does is untouched, meaning current systems cannot produce that work at all, whatever the commercial incentive.
What holds the line here is verification cost. Across this occupation's 27 tasks it averages 2.08 out of 3, the highest of the five friction dimensions. In plain terms, checking the output costs more than producing it. Where an undetected error is expensive, dangerous or irreversible, the economics change. Someone has to verify the work, and verifying can cost as much as doing it. This is the friction most likely to fall as tools for checking improve.
The most exposed thing this job does is Arrange daily schedules for prisoners, at 80.0%. The least is Sponsor inmate recreational activities, at 0.0%. A gap of 80.0% between two parts of the same job is the reason this index publishes at task level. An occupation-wide number would have hidden both.
Within protective service occupations, this one is less exposed than the median of 18.9% across the group's 26 roles, with 23 scoring higher. Being in an exposed family does not make a particular job exposed, and the reverse holds too.
What would move this score. Of 27 tasks, 4 are currently banded exposed, 5 assisted and 18 untouched. For that distribution to shift materially would take robotics cheap and reliable enough to deploy at scale, not a better language model. The score is re-computed every quarter against a fresh capability reference, and the change is published rather than quietly applied.
Where the score comes from
judgedEvery task is scored through the standardised work activities it maps to. These are this occupation’s averages on the six rubric dimensions. Capability is what AI can do; the other five are what stands in the way.
| Dimension | Mean | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| Capability | 1.15 | 0-4 |
| Embodiment | 2.04 | 0-3 |
| Presence | 1.99 | 0-3 |
| Accountability | 1.69 | 0-3 |
| Context | 1.91 | 0-3 |
| Verification cost | 2.08 | 0-3 |
Task by task
27 tasks, O*NET 31.0| Task | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Importance | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arrange daily schedules for prisoners, including library visits, work assignments, family visits, and counseling appointments. | 80.0% | 20.0% | 0.0% | 3.53 | exposed |
| Take fingerprints of arrestees, prisoners, or the general public. | 50.0% | 25.0% | 25.0% | 4.10 | exposed |
| Use nondisciplinary tools and equipment, such as a computer. | 43.8% | 18.8% | 37.5% | 4.25 | exposed |
| Issue clothing, tools, and other authorized items to inmates. | 30.0% | 20.0% | 50.0% | 3.62 | exposed |
| Record information, such as prisoner identification, charges, and incidents of inmate disturbance, keeping daily logs of prisoner activities. | 23.3% | 26.7% | 50.0% | 4.47 | assisted |
| Maintain records of prisoners' identification and charges. | 23.3% | 26.7% | 50.0% | 4.40 | assisted |
| Process or book convicted individuals into prison. | 23.3% | 26.7% | 50.0% | 4.23 | assisted |
| Provide to supervisors oral and written reports of the quality and quantity of work performed by inmates, inmate disturbances and rule violations, and unusual occurrences. | 20.0% | 30.0% | 50.0% | 4.08 | assisted |
| Investigate crimes that have occurred within an institution, or assist police in their investigations of crimes and inmates. | 13.3% | 36.7% | 50.0% | 3.97 | assisted |
| Guard facility entrances to screen visitors. | 11.7% | 13.3% | 75.0% | 4.53 | untouched |
| Inspect conditions of locks, window bars, grills, doors, and gates at correctional facilities to ensure security and help prevent escapes. | 10.0% | 15.0% | 75.0% | 4.63 | untouched |
| Conduct fire, safety, and sanitation inspections. | 8.3% | 16.7% | 75.0% | 4.15 | untouched |
| Settle disputes between inmates. | 8.3% | 16.7% | 75.0% | 4.09 | untouched |
| Drive passenger vehicles and trucks used to transport inmates to other institutions, courtrooms, hospitals, and work sites. | 8.3% | 16.7% | 75.0% | 4.02 | untouched |
| Monitor conduct of prisoners in housing unit, or during work or recreational activities, according to established policies, regulations, and procedures, to prevent escape or violence. | 6.7% | 18.3% | 75.0% | 4.60 | untouched |
| Counsel inmates and respond to legitimate questions, concerns, and requests. | 6.7% | 18.3% | 75.0% | 3.99 | untouched |
| Inspect mail for the presence of contraband. | 5.0% | 20.0% | 75.0% | 4.44 | untouched |
| Supervise and coordinate work of other correctional service officers. | 3.3% | 21.7% | 75.0% | 4.14 | untouched |
| Search prisoners and vehicles and conduct shakedowns of cells for valuables and contraband, such as weapons or drugs. | 2.5% | 10.0% | 87.5% | 4.55 | untouched |
| Conduct head counts to ensure that each prisoner is present. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.67 | untouched |
| Use weapons, handcuffs, and physical force to maintain discipline and order among prisoners. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.35 | untouched |
| Take prisoners into custody and escort to locations within and outside of facility, such as visiting room, courtroom, or airport. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.12 | untouched |
| Participate in required job training. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.12 | untouched |
| Serve meals, distribute commissary items, and dispense prescribed medication to prisoners. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.09 | untouched |
| Assign duties to inmates, providing instructions as needed. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.88 | untouched |
| Search for and recapture escapees. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.43 | untouched |
| Sponsor inmate recreational activities, such as newspapers and self-help groups. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.59 | untouched |
Task text and importance ratings sourced from O*NET 31.0. Shares computed. The occupation score is the importance-weighted mean.
Occupations either side of this one
The four closest scores in the same occupational family, then the four closest anywhere in the index.
Read this carefully. Exposure is not displacement. A high score means current AI systems can produce this work, not that anyone will stop paying a person to do it. Adoption depends on economics, regulation and inertia that this index deliberately does not model. How the score is built.
What this means in practice
Most of this work is not reachable by current systems, so the immediate pressure is on the administrative edges of the role rather than its core: the scheduling, the reporting, the written records. That is where time is recovered.