Youth with a migration background and/or a weaker socioeconomic position are relatively likely to come into contact with the Dutch criminal justice system as crime suspects, and their overrepresentation increases after case processing by police, prosecutors, and judges. It is considerably larger in juvenile detention than among crime suspects, and much larger among crime suspects than among youth reporting crimes in surveys. Such 'cumulative disadvantage' in the criminal justice system is partly a consequence of mutual (dis)trust between juveniles and actors in and around the criminal justice system. Youth with certain status characteristics are more likely to be scrutinized and distrusted by actors in and around the criminal justice system, but distrust on the part of such youth also typically promotes such scrutiny and increases the risks that relatively severe sanctions are used. Relatively severe sanctions, in turn, increase the risks that youth delinquency persists during adulthood, especially if mutual distrust is reinforced. In times of increasing ethno-racial and socioeconomic diversity, and heightened calls for ethno-racial justice, there is a surprising lack of interventions to identify, monitor, and reduce cumulative disadvantage in the criminal system, and we pay insufficient attention to socioeconomic disadvantages that also affect juveniles without a migration background, or that intersect with ethnicity and race. The consortium, which includes key stakeholders in and around the Dutch criminal justice system, will (1) bring new insights and capacities to monitor and reduce problematic sanctioning disparities through a nationwide Judicial Equality Monitor, (2) develop and pilot evidence-based interventions for - and with - police and youth to promote mutual trust and more equal sanctioning outcomes, and (3) create and disseminate an overview of starting points for relevant additional interventions and institutional reforms. It will also lead to scientific breakthroughs in cumulative disadvantage theory, and theories on institutional trust.
