Hilde Wermink

The Influence of Detailed Offender Characteristics on Consecutive Criminal Processing Decisions in the Netherlands

Recent scholarship on sentencing disparity emphasizes the need to consider multiple decision-making points, to incorporate more detailed information on offender background characteristics, and to examine disparity in broader international contexts. This study investigates both pretrial and final sentencing decisions, incorporating a broad array of theoretically relevant offender characteristics. It combines rich survey data with official sentencing data. This data collection is part of a larger project, the Prison Project, in which 1,904 Dutch pretrial detainees were interviewed. Results indicate that several different offender characteristics exert important independent effects over criminal processing decisions and that pretrial release exerts a powerful influence over final sentencing decisions. These findings contribute to ongoing scholarly debates over the key determinants of criminal punishment in international context.

Short-Term Effects of Imprisonment Length on Recidivism in the Netherlands

This article assesses the relationship between imprisonment length and recidivism. The data come from a unique longitudinal and nationwide study of Dutch prisoners, serving an average of 4.1 months of confinement (N = 1,467). A propensity score methodology is used to examine the dose–response relationship for three types of registered recidivism (i.e., reoffending, reconviction, and reincarceration) within a 6-month follow-up period. Findings indicate that length of imprisonment exerts an overall null effect on future rates of recidivism and that this conclusion holds across the various types of recidivism. These findings contribute to continuing scholarly debates over the social and economic costs of imprisonment.

Expanding the scope of sentencing research: Determinants of juvenile and adult punishment in the Netherlands

Research on legal and extralegal disparity in criminal sentencing has been conducted primarily in the United States, and, to a lesser extent, in select European nations. Largely separate research literatures have developed around juvenile and adult sentencing decisions, and few studies examine both prosecutorial and judicial punishment outcomes. This study examines the effects of diverse legal and socio-demographic characteristics on both prosecutorial and judicial punishments, for both juveniles and adults. It assesses the broad generalizability of prior research and theorizing, analyzing punishment outcomes for all criminal suspects registered by the Public Prosecutor’s Office in the Netherlands in 2007. Results indicate that offense, case-processing and criminal history characteristics weigh heavily in prosecutorial and judicial decision-making. There are also direct effects of age, gender and nationality on both prosecutorial and sentencing decisions, for both juvenile and adult offenders, in the Dutch justice system. These findings are discussed in relation to the broad discretion exercised by Dutch court actors and the paper concludes with recommendations for future sentencing research in international contexts.