Samenvatting

Studies showing that suspects with a migration background are punished more severely than offenders with a Dutch background receive a lot of attention from the media and politicians. Yet it remains unclear whether ethnicity causes sentencing disparity. This requires experimental research. In this study, we conduct an experiment in which one half of the participants judged a criminal casefile with a photo of a light-skinned suspect, and the other half a dark-skinned suspect. Data was collected in 2017 and 2021. The data from 2017 show no sentencing disparity, but the 2021-data do show that the dark-skinned offender is punished more severely. Recommendations for future research are made.