The challenge of diversity management: Police reform and the Arab minority in Israel

Diverse societies present different challenges for police forces that have to gain the trust and legitimacy of minorities. Police forces must develop the ability to engage with diversity and overcome their own biases and prejudices in order to better serve minorities. Police reforms, however, may fail to address the challenge successfully if core problems are not clearly identified. In such a case, reforms may be misdirected and fail to achieve the desired results. This paper, based on a study of the Arab minority in Israel, suggests a bottom-up approach that concentrates on identifying the attitudes of minority groups as the basis for any reform plan. A survey was conducted among Arab citizens to identify general attitudes, perceptions of over-policing and under-policing and assessment of three potential reforms; recruitment of minority members into the police, community involvement in policing, and cultural training for police officers.