Michael Wolfowicz

Michael Wolfowicz
Hebrew University of Jerusalem | HUJI · Institute of Criminology

PhD of Criminology

About

35
Publications
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Introduction
My work focuses primarily on traditional criminological applications to the study of radicalization and terrorism, with a specific focus on risk and protective factors, and internet-related factors.

Publications

Publications (35)
Article
This research integrates criminological and psychological literature by applying the 3N model of radicalization to predict criminal attitudes. Specifically, we conceptualize "need" as the search for meaning, "networks" as deviant associations, and "narrative" as criminal attitudes. Across diverse cultural contexts, we explore the roles of these fac...
Article
Full-text available
In recent years, the issue of Jewish settler violence in Israel and its territories has garnered increasing attention. The claimed motivations for such violence are that it is a response to Palestinian-Arab violence and perceived government inaction, as well as perceived selectivity in the formal response toward violence perpetrated by these two po...
Article
When policymakers and officials conceive of some law or regulation designed to criminal, deviant, or socially undesirable behaviors, the best-case scenario is not that it works as intended but that it surpasses original expectations. Similarly, the worst-case scenario is not that the law fails to achieve its intended effect but that it does more ha...
Preprint
Full-text available
In recent years, the issue of Jewish settler violence in Israel and its territories has garnered increasing attention. The claimed motivations for such violence are that it is a response to Palestinian-Arab violence and perceived government inaction, as well as perceived selectivity in the formal response toward violence perpetrated by these two po...
Article
Full-text available
Objectives We aim to encourage scholars who conduct cross-national criminological studies to routinely assess measurement invariance (MI), that is, verify if multi-item instruments that capture latent constructs are conceptualized and understood similarily across different populations. To promote the adoption of MI tests, we present an analytical p...
Article
Full-text available
While countries differ in how they handle terrorism, criminal justice systems in Europe and elsewhere treat terrorism similar to other crime, with police, prosecutors, judges, courts and penal systems carrying out similar functions of investigations, apprehension, charging, convicting and overseeing punishments, respectively. We address a dearth of...
Chapter
Evidence-based policing (EBP) has become a key perspective for practitioners and researchers concerned with the future of policing. This volume provides both a review of where evidence-based policing stands today and a consideration of emerging trends and ideas likely to be important in the future. It includes comparative and international contribu...
Technical Report
Full-text available
Funded by the Home Office via the Perpetrator Fund, this report aims to summarise and build upon the existing evidence for risk and protective factors for domestic abuse perpetration in the UK. We conduct a second-order meta-analysis to systematically review previously published evidence syntheses and quantify the effects of different risk and prot...
Article
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This study examines how behavioral indicators co-occur as “risk profiles” across different domains relevant to risk assessment as theorized by a Risk Analysis Framework, and how these profiles impact upon vulnerability to radicalization. We unpack both the inter- and intra-domain relationships among profiles, identifying the relative importance of...
Preprint
Full-text available
While countries differ significantly in how they handle terrorism, in the west, criminal justice systems tend to treat terrorism similar to other crime, with police, prosecutors, judges and courts, and penal systems carrying out similar functions of investigations, apprehension, charging, convicting, and overseeing punishments respectively. While t...
Preprint
Objectives: We aim to encourage scholars who conduct cross-national criminological survey studies to routinely assess measurement invariance (MI), that is, verify if multi-item instruments are conceptualized and understood in the same way across different populations. Illustrating the importance of MI tests, we examined configural, metric, and scal...
Article
Full-text available
Background Most national counter‐radicalization strategies identify the media, and particularly the Internet as key sources of risk for radicalization. However, the magnitude of the relationships between different types of media usage and radicalization remains unknown. Additionally, whether Internet‐related risk factors do indeed have greater impa...
Article
Research Summary This study uses agent-based models (ABMs) to compare the impacts of three different types of interventions targeting recruitment to terrorism—community workers at community centers; community-oriented policing; and an employment program for high-risk agents. The first two programs are social interventions that focus on de-radicaliz...
Article
Full-text available
In this study we sought to identify whether risk and protective factors for radicalization can be classed as ‘universal’ factors or whether they have heterogeneous cross-regional effects. Specifically, we sought to identify whether there were factors which displayed significantly different effects in European contexts compared to other democratic c...
Article
Full-text available
Objectives Despite popular notions of “filter bubbles” and “echo chambers” contributing to radicalization, little evidence exists to support these hypotheses. However, social structure social learning theory would suggest a hereto untested interaction effect. MethodologyAn RCT of new Twitter users in which participants were randomly assigned to a t...
Article
Full-text available
Background Two of the most central questions in radicalization research are, (1) why do some individuals radicalize when most of those from the same groups or exposed to similar conditions do not? and (2) why do radicalized individuals turn to radical violence while the majority remain inert? It has been suggested that the answer to both questions...
Article
Full-text available
Objectives In this systematic review and meta analysis we will collate and synthesize the evidence on media‐effects for radicalization, focusing on both cognitive and behavioral outcomes. The goal is to identify the relative magnitudes of the effects for different mediums, types of content, and elements of human‐media relationships. Methodology Ra...
Article
Objectives Social media platforms such as Facebook are used by both radicals and the security services that keep them under surveillance. However, only a small percentage of radicals go on to become terrorists and there is a worrying lack of evidence as to what types of online behaviors may differentiate terrorists from non-violent radicals. Most o...
Article
Full-text available
Objectives Despite the prevalence of religious-oriented rehabilitation programs, few studies have assessed the effects of these programs on recidivism. Prior studies have generally focused on Christian-based programs in the USA and also suffer from a range of methodological problems, making it difficult to draw sound conclusions. The current study...
Article
Full-text available
Objectives This systematic review seeks to collate and synthesize putative risk and protective factors for the different outcomes of radicalization. Methodology Drawing on an established theoretical framework, we will categorize putative risk and protective factors as they relate to the domains of radical attitudes, intentions, and behaviors. We w...
Article
Full-text available
Objectives This study examines the spatial characteristics of vehicular terror attacks in Israel from a “micro place” perspective at the street segment level. Utilizing data obtained from the Israel Security Agency, Israel National police, and open sources, the study analyzes the 71 vehicular attacks carried out in Israel between 2000 and 2017. In...
Article
Full-text available
Objectives The number of individuals incarcerated for terrorism offences in the West has grown considerably in recent years. However, unlike the extensive literature on recidivism for ordinary criminal offenders, little is known about recidivism for terrorism offenders. Given that many terrorism offenders are to be released in the coming years, the...
Article
Full-text available
Objectives This systematic review sought to collate and synthesize the risk and protective factors for different outcomes of radicalization. We aimed to firstly quantify the effects of all factors for which rigorous empirical data exists, and secondly, to differentiate between factors related to radical attitudes, intention, and behaviors. The goal...
Chapter
Terrorism research has become a field of increasing interest and importance over the last few decades. Since the events of 9/11, the number of publications in the field has increased exponentially. Despite the explosion in terrorism research, reviews of the literature have consistently bemoaned the dearth of empirical evidence (Silke 2001, 2007, 20...
Chapter
The potential of terrorists to re-offend after their release from prison is of much concern in many countries around the world. Yet, there is little research on terrorist recidivism, and risk factors that might contribute to it, as data concerning released offenders of terrorism is scarce. In this chapter, we investigate terrorist recidivism using...
Technical Report
Full-text available
PROTON D5.1 presents two agent-based models (ABMs), one on recruitment in organised crime network and the other on radicalisation and terrorist recruitment. The report presents each model in sequence, addressing the design of the models including their theoretical framework, state of the art, and model overview. It then outlines the calibration, va...
Chapter
In the last two decades, democratic countries have had to contend with a growing and evolving terrorist threat. Many of the counter-terrorism policies that have been introduced during this period have been criticized for having been made hastily and without a solid evidentiary basis. Critics argue that as a result, many policies not only fail to gu...

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