Equality Before the Courts? Studying Citizenship Disparities in Sentencing in Catalonia

Abstract Overrepresentation of foreigners in prisons is a well-established fact Spain. However, there lack empirical studies exploring the causes this overrepresentation. Based on focal concerns theory, paper aims to explore one possible overrepresentation: sentencing disparities between Spanish and foreign citizens. For purpose, two subsets court records are used study odds incarceration ( n = 2310) differences length prison sentence 1162). Due alleged limitations standard regression models analyse when groups large, entropy re-weighting was achieve balance group observations with regard control variables. The analyses reveal, hand that, even controlling for relevant legal other extra-legal factors, citizens from Africa have higher than be sentenced prison. On hand, no conviction been found.