From the stop to the sentence: disparity in the Dutch criminal justice chain and the reach of the ECHR

Abstract

People with a non-Western migration background are overrepresented in the Dutch criminal justice system. Overrepresentation grows as cases move towards imprisonment. The WODC's 2025 study explains much of this gap through offence type, criminal history and socio-economic background. But part of it remains unexplained. This residual is largest at the stages of prosecution and sentencing. This thesis asks what produces it, and whether the European Convention on Human Rights can reach it. The thesis first maps the disparity. It reads the WODC data together with CBS figures on police stops, which show that the pattern starts before official registration begins. It then argues that the residual is not a statistical error. It is produced by three mechanisms: a political discourse that treats migration as a threat, immigration law that creates structural vulnerability, and institutional practices that use neutral criteria as a proxy for origin. These mechanisms come together where officials have the most discretion. That is where the residual concentrates. The last part looks at the Convention. Article 14, read with Articles 5 and 8, offers real tools: indirect discrimination, statistical evidence, and the case law on ethnic profiling. But these have not been used at the stages of prosecution and sentencing, where the disparity is largest. The Convention is not powerless. It has simply not been applied where it is most needed. Together, these findings describe a crimmigration pipeline that works through belonging, not legal status. The responsibility lies with the institutions that produce the pattern, not the people it is measured on.