British Journal of Criminology Advance Access published online on July 6, 2009
British Journal of Criminology, doi:10.1093/bjc/azp044
The British Journal of Criminology 0:azp044 (2009)
© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (ISTD). All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
POLICE INVOLVEMENT IN COUNTER-TERRORISM AND PUBLIC ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE POLICE IN ISRAEL—1998–2007
* Institute of Criminology, Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University, Mt Scopus, Jerusalem 91905, Israel; tal.jonathan{at}mail.huji.ac.il. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Homeland Security or the National Institute of Justice.
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Public attitudes towards the police are considered one of the important outcomes of policing in democratic countries. However, it is not clear how policing terrorism may affect these evaluations. The Rally Effect provides a context for examining this question, and suggests that when faced with severe terrorism threats, public perceptions of the police will rise in the short term but decline over time. Utilizing this framework, this article examines fluctuations in attitudes of Jewish adults in Israel towards the police over the past decade, within the context of legitimacy and procedural justice. The results lend support for the hypothesized model, and suggest that in addition to police conduct, public attitudes toward the police may be influenced by larger social forces.
Key Words: policing terrorism public attitudes legitimacy Rally Effect