NCJ Number
220628
Journal
British Journal of Criminology Volume: 47 Issue: 5 Dated: September 2007 Pages: 728-745
Date Published
September 2007
Length
18 pages
Annotation
This study compared the views of Arabs and Jews regarding several key aspects of policing in Israel.
Abstract
The study found that Arabs viewed the police in Israel more negatively than Jews, and these differences almost always reached statistical significance. This did not mean, however, that Jews had consistently positive views of police. In fact, Jews' views of police were generally less positive than dominant groups' views of police in Northern Ireland and apartheid South Africa. Among the possible reasons for this finding is Jews' perception that the Israeli police are not sufficiently effective in performing their crime-control duties, particularly when compared with the more highly regarded security performance of the Israeli military. Although Arabs in Israel were consistently more likely to hold negative views of the police than Jews, they were less critical of the police than their minority counterparts in Northern Ireland and apartheid South Africa. This may be because Arabs in Israel, in contrast to oppressed minorities in Northern Ireland and apartheid South Africa, have rights in Israel on a par with those enjoyed by Jews. This suggests that citizens' views of police are related to broader conditions for various minority groups in a given society and not just their interactions with police. Study data came from a March 2003 telephone survey of adult Arabs and Jews (over age 18) living within the Israeli police force's Northern District. The majority (70 percent) of the Israeli Arab population lives in this district; and they typically live in communities that are entirely Arab and isolated from the Jewish population. The sample included 250 Jewish and 444 Arab respondents. Respondents were questioned about four areas of citizens' attitudes toward the police: overall satisfaction, police ethnic bias, police misconduct, and citizen receptivity to the police. 5 tables and 54 references