On average, Dutch courts impose harsher sentences on suspects who are less well-off than those in a better socioeconomic position, the Research and Data Center (WODC) found in a new study on criminal law.
Would love to know more about what kind of crimes this is talking about, and how the less-poor can bullshit their way out of it
They can afford better lawyers, most likely.
It’s probably also stuff like clothing and looks. Poorer people may not have an expensive suit that makes them look serious about the case. More wealthy people will have one. Sure in theory it shouldn’t make a difference but judges are also just humans that get influenced by those things. Add to that better (or worse) education about laws as well as a difference in behaviour from (lack) of training and you end up with different sentences.
Generally the people that can spend more money will be better prepared and that will have a positive return even if it probably shouldn’t matter that much in front of a court.
Yeah, I would assume this pattern holds across much of the world…
Why am I always hearing bad news about the dutch all of a sudden?
I think there are quite a few dutch people on lemmy so we’re just seeing their news more often
Probably because fediverse users keep linking it.
Also, let’s not pretend that this is significantly different in any other western country. Paid lawyers are standard in most judicial systems, wealthy suspects will always have an advantage because of that.
I‘m pretty sure the Netherlands are still near the top in global rankings when it comes to equality. I would guess it‘s much worse in most countries. But it‘s a mostly capitalistic world and being poor is expensive. Everywhere.
Maybe they annoyed a media owner? Which if so makes them better in my book, but since I really dunno shrug
It’s a dutch site.
Eh, kinda. Let’s see if the NRC or Volkskrant run with this.
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