Terrorism and risk management: The Israeli case

Throughout the past few decades, Israel has developed a set of legal, criminal justice and other law enforcement initiatives under the broad category of 'counter-terrorism policy'. This policy attempts both to separate and manage more effectively a group of suspected and accused terrorists. This article utilizes the New Penology perspective to trace the ways in which notions of risk and dangerousness are embedded in the counter-terrorism discourse and practices developed in Israel. Additionally, this article analyzes various initiatives and, in particular, laws and the institutional mechanism that administrate the management of risk posed by terrorist groups. Our analysis reveals how such initiatives and their enforcement are legitimized and grounded in a single discourse embedded with the socially and politically constructed notions of 'dangerousness', 'risk assessment' and 'security'.