Israeli Law Enforcement (focus on Police)

Israeli Law Enforcement (focus on Israel Police):

[Note: The Israel Police has been become controversial in recent years due to domestic political factors. The literature cited below, which ChatGPT provided in an inquiry about the Israel Police, emphasizes the professional aspects of the Israel Police, and its interaction with international police organizations and researchers. It is hoped that these aspects of its activity and organizational culture will again characterize the activities of the Israel Police in the coming period.]

Jonathan-Zamir, Tal, David Weisburd, and Badi Hasisi, eds., (Policing in Israel: Studying Crime Control, Community, and Counterterrorism [hc, Routledge, 2015]) 978-1498722568 [pb, Routledge, 2020] 978-0367873042 [- a substantial collection devoted specifically to Israeli policing rather than Israeli security generally. Topics include crime concentrations in Tel Aviv-Jaffa, traffic enforcement, police organization, relations with minorities, victims' attitudes toward police, police legitimacy, counterterrorism, and police-community relations. - Policing in Israel presents important advances in Israeli police science during the past decade. It demonstrates how empirical research in countries outside the traditional research domains of the United States, Europe, and Australia can provide comparative legitimacy to key concepts and findings in policing. It also addresses innovative questions in the study of police, showing that there is much to learn about the police enterprise by looking to Israel.

The studies included in this book contribute to the policing literature in three significant ways. They replicate findings from English-speaking countries on key issues such as hot-spots policing, thereby supporting the validity of the findings and enabling a wider scope of generalization. Also, they utilize unique Israeli conditions to address questions that are difficult to test in other countries, such as in counterterrorism. Finally, they ask innovative questions in the study of policing that are yet to be addressed elsewhere. – Amazon]

Jonathan-Zamir, Tal, David Weisburd, and Badi Hasisi, (Policing Terrorism, Crime Control, and Police-Community Relations: Learning from the Israeli Experience [hc, Springer, 2014]) 978-3319081250 [pb, Springer, 2016] 978-3319362762 [This timely and important work takes a critical look at the shifting role of police, who are becoming increasingly responsible for handling terrorism threats on top of their regular responsibilities. With an unprecedented empirical study, the authors of this book examine whether this increased focus on security-related threats may come at the expense of addressing “classic” police responsibilities, such as fighting crime and dealing with local, day-to-day community problems. They also examine whether this shift has had a detrimental effect on police-community relationships and perceptions of police legitimacy, as their role changes from “service” to “suspicion.” Through a four-year, multi-method study specifically focused on the Israel National Police, the authors of this work have examined the effects of this shifting role on a number of key areas of policing concern, namely: police effectiveness at fighting crime and police legitimacy, drawing conclusions applicable to any democratic police force. The results of the study provide a number of concrete recommendations for maintaining effectiveness and community relationships of the police, with increasing responsibilities, challenges, and limited resources. 

An important empirical study of what happens when an ordinary civilian police force also assumes major counterterrorism responsibilities. Particularly valuable for the tension between normal crime control and security policing, and the effects on police-community relations, especially Arab-Jewish relations. – Amazon]

Ben-Porat, Guy, and Fany Yuval, (Policing Citizens: Minority Policy in Israel [hc, Cambridge UP, 2019]) 978-1108417259 [pb, Cambridge UP, 2020] 978-1108404747 [What does police violence against minorities, or violent clashes between minorities and the police tell us about citizenship and its internal hierarchies? Indicative of deep-seated tensions and negative perceptions; incidents such as these suggest how minorities are vulnerable, suffer from or are subject to police abuse and neglect in Israel. Marked by skin colour, negatively stigmatized or rendered security threats, their encounters with police provide a daily reminder of their defunct citizenship. Taking as case studies the experiences and perceptions of four minority groups within Israel including Palestinian/Arab citizens, ultra-Orthodox Jews and Ethiopian and Russian immigrants, Ben-Porat and Yuval are able to explore different paths of citizenship and the stratification of the citizenship regime through relations with and perceptions of the police in Israel. Touching on issues such as racial profiling, police brutality and neighbourhood neglect, their study questions the notions of citizenship and belonging, shedding light on minority relationships with the state and its institutions. – Amazon]

Saunders, Jessica, Steven W. Popper, Andrew R. Morral, Robert C. Davis, Claude Berrebi, Kristin J. Leuschner, Shira Efron, Boaz Segalovitz, and Jack Riley. (Effective Policing for 21st-Century Israel [pb, RAND Corporation, 2013] 978-0833080936 [The Israel Police and the Ministries of Public Security and Finance commissioned RAND to examine the force. Their report covers public confidence, organizational performance, benchmarking against foreign police organizations, crime prevention, deterrence and performance measurement. It is particularly helpful in providing a concise institutional description of the modern Israel Police.]

Particularly useful articles and chapters

Hovav, Meir, and Menachem Amir, “Israel Police: History and Analysis,” Police Studies 2, no. 2 (1979): 5–31 [An older but important English-language overview of the history and development of the Israel Police.]

Gamson, William A., and Ephraim Yuchtman, “Police and Society in Israel,” In David H. Bayley, ed., Police and Society, 195–218. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, 1977. [One of the earliest substantial English-language scholarly treatments of the police in Israeli society. The volume grew out of a 1976 conference on the social determinants of police behavior.]

Herzog, Sergio, “Militarization and Demilitarization Processes in the Israeli and American Police Forces: Organizational and Social Aspects,” Policing and Society 11, no. 2 (2001): 181–208. DOI: 10.1080/10439463.2001.9964861. [Very useful on one of the distinctive features of Israeli law enforcement: the boundary between the civilian police model and military/security culture. Herzog compares developments in Israel and the United States and discusses attempts to make Israeli policing more civilian and community-oriented.]

Hasisi, Badi, and Ronald Weitzer, “Police Relations with Arabs and Jews in Israel,” British Journal of Criminology 47, no. 5 (September 2007): 728–745. DOI: 10.1093/bjc/azm027. [One of the key articles on majority/minority relations and policing. It compares Arab and Jewish assessments of the police and places Israel in the comparative literature on policing ethnically divided societies.]

Hasisi, Badi, “Police, Politics, and Culture in a Deeply Divided Society,” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 98, no. 3 (2008): 1119–1145. [An important theoretical and empirical discussion of Israeli police-minority relations. Hasisi argues that political conflict alone does not adequately explain minority attitudes toward police; cultural differences must also be considered.]

Weisburd, David, Badi Hasisi, Tal Jonathan [Jonathan-Zamir], and Gali Aviv, “Terrorist Threats and Police Performance: A Study of Israeli Communities.” British Journal of Criminology 50, no. 4 (July 2010): 725–747. DOI: 10.1093/bjc/azp064. [Especially interesting because it asks whether counterterrorism responsibilities undermine ordinary police work. It uses the Second Intifada as a natural setting for examining police clearance rates and differences between Jewish and Arab communities.]

Jonathan, Tal [Tal Jonathan-Zamir], “Police Involvement in Counter-Terrorism and Public Attitudes Towards the Police in Israel—1998–2007,” British Journal of Criminology 50, no. 4 (July 2010): 748–771. DOI: 10.1093/bjc/azp044. [This belongs immediately alongside Weisburd et al. It examines how the Israel Police's counterterrorism role affected public attitudes toward the force over roughly a decade. The two articles appeared together in the BJC's section on policing conflict zones. ]

Jonathan-Zamir, Tal, and Amikam Harpaz, “Police Understanding of the Foundations of Their Legitimacy in the Eyes of the Public: The Case of Commanding Officers in the Israel National Police,” British Journal of Criminology 54, no. 3 (May 2014): 469–489. [An unusually interesting study because it approaches policing from the police officers' own perspective: what senior Israeli police commanders think gives the police legitimacy. One significant finding is the gap between commanders' emphasis on effectiveness/crime fighting and citizens' greater concern with procedural fairness.]

Aviv, Gali, “Crime Victims and Attitudes Towards the Police: The Israeli Case,” Police Practice and Research 15, no. 2 (2014): 115–129. DOI: 10.1080/15614263.2013.874170. [Based on a large Israeli community survey; examines how crime victims evaluate police treatment, effectiveness and trustworthiness compared with non-victims.]

Hasisi, Badi, and David Weisburd. “Policing Terrorism and Police–Community Relations: Views of the Arab Minority in Israel.” Police Practice and Research 15, no. 2 (2014): 158–172. DOI: 10.1080/15614263.2013.874173. [Important on the intersection of ordinary law enforcement, counterterrorism and Arab citizens' relationship with the police. Interestingly, the research found considerable Arab recognition of a legitimate police counterterrorism role alongside greater concern about its consequences for Arab-police relations.]

Perry, Simon, and Tal Jonathan-Zamir, “Lessons from Empirical Research on Policing in Israel: Policing Terrorism and Police–Community Relationships,” Police Practice and Research 15, no. 2 (2014): 173–187. [A particularly useful synthesis. In fact, volume 15, no. 2 of Police Practice and Research (2014) is worth treating almost as a mini-book: the entire issue is entitled “Trends in Israeli Policing: Terrorism, Community, Victimization and Crime Control.”]

Ater, Itai, Yehonatan Givati, and Oren Rigbi, “Organizational Structure, Police Activity and Crime,” Journal of Public Economics 115 (July 2014): 62–71. [A clever empirical study of an Israeli reform that transferred responsibility for holding arrestees from the police to the prison authority. The authors found that relieving police of this cost increased arrests and reduced reported crime, while also reducing the average quality of arrests as measured by subsequent indictments. It is a useful piece on the nuts and bolts of Israeli law enforcement rather than terrorism or ethnic relations. ]

Ben-Porat, Guy, and Tehila Gado. [“Were It Not for Fear of the Government”: Haredi (Ultra-Orthodox) Citizens and the Police] Policy Paper 196. Jerusalem: Israel Democracy Institute, 2024. [978-0833080936 [This is highly pertinent because it deals specifically with the complicated relationship between Haredi Jews and the Israeli police.]