I argue that a compelling way to articulate what is wrong with racial profiling in policing is to view racial profiling as a violation of the presumption of innocence. I discuss the communicative nature of the presumption of innocence as an expression of social trust and a protection against the social condemnation of being undeservingly investigated, prosecuted, and convicted for committing a crime. I argue that, given its communicative dimension, failures to extend the presumption of innocence are an expression of disrespect. I take the New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk policy as an example of racial profiling and argue that its use of race-based forms of suspicion as reasons for making stops is a violation of the presumption of innocence. I maintain that this systemic failure to extend the presumption of innocence to profiled groups reveals the essentially disrespectful nature of the NYPD policy.

Both in punishment theory and sentencing practices, the subjective sentence severity is an important yet neglected area of research. This paper aims to explain differences between inmates in their subjective severity of imprisonment and to contemplate these against the background of important sentencing goals and sentencing principles. Two models commonly used to explain adjustment to prison life were applied: the import and deprivation model. Data from the Prison Project, collected among Dutch inmates staying in pretrial detention, reveal that both import and deprivation characteristics are related to the subjective severity of imprisonment. No support is found for a moderation effect of personality.

Sentencing research focusing solely on unsuspended imprisonment does no justice to the practice of sentencing, where many other punishment types are imposed – often conjunctly. To investigate to what extent this imprisonment bias might have caused incomplete and thereby biased findings, we compare the effects of offender characteristics for imprisonment to those for other sanction types, as well as to a model combining sanction types. Findings suggest that the effects of offender characteristics differ per sanction type. When combinations of sanction types are taken into account, some offender characteristics do no longer have mitigating or aggravating effects, or the effects even inverted. Hence, future sentencing research should aim to include all sentences imposed.