The Immigrant and Crime
| Date | 01 December 1969 |
| Published date | 01 December 1969 |
| DOI | 10.1177/000486586900200403 |
| Subject Matter | Original Articles |
198 AUST. &N.Z. JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY (Dec., 1969): 2, 4
The Immigrant and
Crime
ISRAEL DRAPKIN*
TO BEGIN
with
I would like to stress
the
point
that
the
subject of
this
meeting is
"The
Immigrant
and
Crime",
but
I
shall
refer
mainly to
the
Israeli experience;
not
only because Ihave been working on
the
subject
but
also because
Israel
is today one of
the
very few countries
that
still
has
migration in big numbers.
To
better
understand
such aspecific subject as crime in a given com-
munity, it is always necessary to have as clear apicture as possible of some
of its basic characteristics -its geographical location, historical evolution,
religious
and
political trends, demographic profile, social structure, basic
economics, etc.
Only
after
having some knowledge about
the
national
"milieu" or
"habitat"
and
the
general
cultural
pattern
can
we expect to grasp
the
real
meaning of
many
facets of
the
observed phenomena. Otherwise
there
per-
sists always some artificial abstraction about
the
entire
picture, as if
it
were
in
avacuum, without
the
necessary atmosphere to keep
it
alive
and
natural.
In
talking
about
crime in Israel
such
arequirement is amust, due to
the
fact
that
Israel
is a new
nation
but
a very
ancient
people, about whom
there
exist
many
pre-conceptions, blurred notions
and
contradictory ideas which
we shall
try
to clarify from
the
outset to
the
best of our ability. Limited in
time as we
are
we
shall
only
concentrate
on those aspects directly related
to
our
specific
theme
of crime
and
immigration in Israel.
In
what
we
say
we
shall
not
take
into
consideration
the
result of
the
so-called "SiX-day War".
We shall
talk
exclusively about
Israel
as it was before
June
1967.
Israel is a very small
country
located
at
the
eastern
end of
the
Mediter-
ranean
Sea
with
ageographic
area
of some
8,000
square miles, including
the
southern
desert of
the
Negev which occupies two-thirds of
its
entire
terri-
tory. Discounting
the
truly
desert areas, as well as those occupied by
the
Sea of Galilee
and
the
Dead Sea,
there
is left only
around
one-third
of
the
total
geographical
area
mentioned, where
the
entire
population is concen-
trated.
To
such
atiny
strip
of land, mostly desert
and
barren
by centuries of
neglect, devoid of obvious
natural
resources, several
hundred
thousands
of
hardy
and
dedicated Jewish pioneers
and
their
children
went
to Palestine
to build a new life on
the
historical soil of
their
ancestors. Here
they
had
to live on
the
alert, ever vigilant
against
the
frequent
harassment
of
re-
current
attacks
of
the
Arab
majority
of
the
country. When finally
the
state
of Israel was established on
the
15th of May
1948
they
were immediately
faced
with
annihilation
by
the
combined organised military forces of
the
neighbouring countries. They repelled
the
attack
with
primitive homemade
weapons,
but
with
much
courage
and
determination.
*Professor of Criminology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
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