Apparently they use it to calculate recidivism. Then that report is used by the judge to calculate the sentence. It's already being used in some places in the US

As far as I know, the algorithms used for these are in fact rule-based at this point, not neural networks. Which actually is not much better, since these systems are still propietary and black box. This is of course horrible for a functioning sense of justice, since the decisions made are now (partly) dependent on opaque decisions made by an algorithm of a company without any arguments you can contest or inspect. Furthermore, it has been shown that these algorithms frequently are racially biased in various ways.

Further reading: https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessm...

Pre-trial detention:

"To date, there are approximately 60 risk assessment tools deployed in the criminal justice system. These tools aim to differentiate between low-, medium-, and high-risk defendants and to increase the likelihood that only those who pose a risk to public safety or are likely to flee are detained." [0]

Actual sentences:

"In China, robot judges decide on small claim cases, while in some Malaysian courts, AI has been used to recommend sentences for offences such as drug possession. " [1]

In both cases it's a recommendation. For now. Certainly better than a corrupt judge though. Until dirty prosecutors and policemen find a way to feed the system specially crafted input to trick it into giving guilty verdict and a long sentence.

[0] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3541967

[1] https://theconversation.com/we-built-an-algorithm-that-predi...