L.A. County Probation Deputy CIO: Balance IT Needs With Value, Risk

Los Angeles County has the largest probation department in the U.S., which means managing the IT needs of not only a large population of individuals at various points within the criminal justice system but also those tasked with guiding them through it.

As with just about every job in 2025, technology plays an enormous part in that process — from intake and booking to recommendations to the court to tracking individual progress and compliance with court orders.

Deputy CIO Vijay Panati told attendees at the Industry Insider — California L.A. County member briefing in Hacienda Heights, Calif., this week that the department isn’t after the shiniest new toys, even admitting that he’d forgo innovative technologies for the sake of value and function.

“I'm in the business of serving customers or clients who have a need, and I'm constitutionally charged with providing a certain level of service,” he said. “I'm interested in value … everything, to me, comes from value and risk.”

What Panati is interested in, from a solutions standpoint, is tech that streamlines the various workflows his team has to navigate and tools that help with compliance monitoring and auditing. The department focuses on positive outcomes for the adult and juvenile individuals that it works with.

The deputy CIO said “immense” budgetary pressure — driven by the county’s recent $4 billion legal settlement, fiscal impacts of the recent wildfires, and state and federal funding changes — has increased the need for departments and their vendors to show immediate value with each tech buy.

“You have to be careful right now, especially when it comes to money … If we are spending money, we have to be able to easily, tangibly, measurably and objectively show a return in short order,” he said. “We don't have the, let's say, the freedom of taking a lot of risks.”

While some jurisdictions and agencies are charging hard into the AI space, Probation is taking a measured approach, reviewing possible use cases and how they might fold into workflows.

“But again, unless we get that immediate value, it's not going to be a good discussion,” Panati said. “Right now, AI is not a driving vision, so to speak.”

The deputy CIO didn’t mince words when it came to what he expects from potential vendor partners — he wants long-term relationships built on trust, not one-off flings. As with any relationship, lost trust is hard to rebuild. Initial contacts are not sales opportunities, he warned.

“We are in it for the long haul,“ he said. “Honestly, people working with the county, you’ve got to be in it for the long game. You're not going to make your quarter. If you want to do business with us, you have to understand it's going to take a long time, there's no way around it.”