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13 J. Quantitative Criminology 1 (1997)

handle is hein.journals/jquantc13 and id is 1 raw text is: Journal of Quantitative Criminology, Vol. 13, No. 1, 1997 Crime and the Criminal Justice System in Israel: A Sociohistorical Perspective Arye Rattner''2 and Gideon Fishman'3 Ever since its establishment in 1948, the Israeli society has been referred to as a multicleavage society. Three major cleavages have served to divide the country, which has grown from a population of 600,000 in 1948 to a population of over 5.8 million in 1996. The Jewish-Arab cleavage has been reflected both internally, in the conflict between Jewish and Arab citizens, and externally, in the fragile relationship existing between Israel and its Arab neighbors. The ethnic cleavage, which is also well-known in Israel as the conflict between Ashkenazim (Western Jews) and Sephardim (Jews of Asian- African origin), initially emerged from cultural difference between the two groups but has become a central issue in Israel. Differences over segregation and separatism have turned the cleavage into a source of class conflict. The religious-secular cleavage is the division between the nonorthodox (secular) Jews and the various groups of orthodox and ultraorthodox Jews, with the latter attempting to strengthen the link between state and religion, to a point where religious laws and rules would supersede the rule of law in the state. The constant tension and conflict created by the extreme religious sectors have led to their virtual estrangement from social and political life in Israel, and from time to time, they have resorted to the use of violence as an avenue for expressing this resentment. One would expect crime to be the inevitable outcome in a country experiencing large population growth, alienation, hostility, and overt conflict between Jews and Arabs, Western and Middle Eastern Jews, and orthodox and secular Jews. In fact, since 1951 Israel has experienced an increase of more than 190% in the overall crime rate (from 28 per 1000 population in 1951-1952 to 53.2 per 1000 in 1995). This upward trend closely parallels the 'Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel. 2Department of Sociology, York University, North York, Ontario, Canada. 'The Center for the Study of Youth Policy, The University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104. 0748-4518/97/0300-0001$12.50/0 © 1997 Plenum Publishing Corporation

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