Living With Conviction Is the Israeli justice system systemically biased against Arabs? Is that important?

Boruch Clinton Jun 14

Here’s a strange one. You all know that the primary focus of this publication is the economics of Orthodox Judaism. But while poking around Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics site, I came across an interesting set of numbers that aren’t (directly) related to my focus.

So I thought I’d send this quick piece out to the email list. Although because of the high risk of unpleasant and unwanted consequences, I won’t leave it on the public-facing website.

CBS has data on the total numbers of “Accused and Convicted Persons In Criminal Trials” going through the justice system between 2000 and 2012. They let us break out the numbers by race (i.e., Jews and Arabs) and by status (i.e., accused and convicted).

It immediately occurred to me that these numbers, when compared, could give us a reasonably accurate criminal conviction rate. Why is that important? Because it could identify any inherent bias in the justice system.

After all, we’re not talking about the prevalence of criminal behavior (i.e., how many Arabs/Jews committed a particular type of crime per 100,000 population), which could easily have cultural or economic origins. As it turns out, the average number of Jews brought to criminal trial (regardless of the final conviction status) each year was 24,729. The corresponding number of Arabs was 18,139.

Rather, we’re looking at the way judges (and juries?) treat individuals brought before them by a single set of prosecutors. Presumably, all prosecutors should use a consistent standard when assessing the odds of successful conviction. So you’d expect similar conviction rates across all social segments.

But you’d be wrong. Because, between 2000 and 2012, the average conviction rate for accused Jews was 84.9%. But for accused Arabs, the rate was 94.7%. That’s 10% higher. Hardly a subtle effect! The standard deviation of both populations was a very narrow 1.5% (or so) - which means the numbers were pretty consistent through the entire period.

Now, what could account for this difference? Here are some possibilities (although I’m certainly not committing to any assumptions):

Judges tend to be racists

Judges and prosecutors tend to be racists

Prosecutors are generally lazy, but manage to drag themselves out of their lethargy to do their job properly for cases involving Arabs

Prosecutors are generally aggressive and effective, but use a light hand for Jews

Arab criminals are very bad at avoiding getting caught for their crimes

Arabs are less likely to be able to afford good defense lawyers

Jews are very good at avoiding getting caught for their crimes

Jews are more likely to be able to afford good defense lawyers

These numbers certainly suggest (but don’t prove) the existence of a serious moral and legal problem. I’d love to understand them better, and perhaps see how they might translate to other elements of Israeli society.

After all, isn’t it possible that a similar anti-charedi (or anti-sefardi) bias could exist in the justice system, and beyond?