Disproportionate minority contact in the Dutch juvenile justice system

Abstract

To examine whether disproportionate minority contact (DMC) exists in the Netherlands, the representation of minority youth was determined for all stages of the juvenile justice system. Using native Dutch youth as a reference group, the odds ratios (OR) to be registered and arrested as suspect, for alternative punishment and for incarceration, were calculated for the minority youth. In all stages of the juvenile justice system, the ORs for minority youths were considerably higher, except for alternative punishment, having lower ORs. This indicates that DMC exists in the Netherlands. DMC should be politicized and programs should be developed to eliminate this inequality.

Keywords:

• Ethnicity
• juveniles
• quantitative research

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Albert Boon

Albert Boon is a psychologist and accepted his PhD in the field of psychiatry at Leiden University in 2001. He is currently serving as associate professor at Curium-LUMC: Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Leiden University and at Lucertis/De Jutters Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry of the Parnassia Psychiatric Institute. His primary interest is the relation between ethnic background and the accessibility and efficacy of youth mental health services.

Melissa van Dorp

Melissa van Dorp is a psychologist and is currently working as researcher at Lucertis/De Jutters and Academische Werkplaats Risicojeugd/Intermetzo, the Netherlands. Her primary interests are ethnic differences in relation to juvenile delinquency and illicit drug use.

Sjouk de Boer

Sjouk de Boer is a psychologist/researcher in the field of forensic psychiatry. Her dissertation “Age of Onset of Disruptive Behavior of Residentially Treated Adolescents” (2019) is the result of research project to differentiate within a sample psychiatric inpatients with severe conduct problems. Together with Albert Boon, she conducted several studies on the relation between ethnic background and youth mental health consumption.