With this contribution, we develop a theoretical perspective on the practical and institutional consequences of the digitization of law using the example of risk assessment software employed in US courts. Our article is based on the ongoing journalistic and scientific debates about recidivism risk assessment sentencing decision support systems (SDSS), such as COMPAS, which are being used in US county courts for criminal law issues to determine parole, custody and/or sentences. We summarize and highlight central contents and identify missing discourse positions in those debates. The basic technological concept of recidivism risk assessment SDSS is also taken into account. From there, we argue that three shifts have appeared in the US judiciary system: (1) statistical populations, models and methods shape knowledge production and the subsequent rise of new or additional discursive sensitivities and controversies; (2) risk assessment SDSS are blurring inter-institutional boundaries between law and economy, punitive justice and penitentiary; (3) risk assessment SDSS cause intra-institutional shifts, affecting the performativity of punitive judiciary and its practices of law and civic subjectivation. Thereby, this article is oriented towards a sociology of legal technology, analytically bringing together perspectives on the production of knowledge, technology, legal practices and legal institutions. Only, as we argue, by consequently thinking of the sociology of law together with the sociology of technology can the social phenomenon of legal-tech be understood adequately.
