Ethnoracial classification and the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics: constructing Palestinian criminality in Israel (1990–2019)

Abstract

ABSTRACT Research on the census and ethnoracial classification shows that the categories collected by census agencies are political choices that not only reflect demographic reality but also, to some extent, construct it. In this article, using the case of the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, I focus on one type of official statistics, criminal justice statistics, and theorize how their changing presentation of ethnoracial categories can have a stigmatizing effect. Based on analyzing 30 years of the annual Statistical of Israel, I show that the criminal justice statistics section of this publication made several changes to the categories they presented including removing breakdowns by continent of origin/birth for Jews. Building on research on the history of crime statistics in the United States, I show how removing the continent of origin/birth for Jews had the effect of creating a binary comparison between Jews and Arabs, thus stigmatizing the latter group.