Minority suspects more likely to face jail “due to ethnic bias”

Suspects with ethnic minority roots are more likely to end up facing prosecution and jail terms than those without, and this is partly down to ethnic selection, according to new research.

The government’s scientific research institute WODC carried out the research on behalf of parliament, which wanted to know if people with ethnic minority roots are more likely than the native Dutch to be convicted of a crime.

The findings show that suspects with a migration background are more likely to be prosecuted and sentenced to detention than suspects without such a background, even when the offences are similar.

The WODC looked into the cumulative impact of ethnicity throughout the legal process and found that the further along the chain, the more likely minorities are to be convicted and jailed. This, the institute said, is particularly the case with youngsters.

Some 46% of young registered suspects have minority roots, 49% of cases sent to the public prosecution department involve minority youngsters, and 67% of those sent to jail have a migration background.

The situation is similar, but not as pronounced, among adults. There, some 45% of suspects and 55% of people sentenced to jail are from an ethnic minority.

Despite taking sociological and economic background into account, the researchers still found people with minority roots were increasingly over-represented the further up the legal chain they looked.

This, they said, is down to ethnic selectivity — taking someone’s background or skin colour into account, either deliberately or unconsciously.

The WODC recommends the introduction of an equality monitor to track outcomes across the justice system and detect disparities by personal characteristics. It also proposes trialling ‘blind prosecution’ in some cases, where decision-makers would not see identifying information such as names or photos.