International Criminologists To Lead New Zealand Police Research Symposium

7 April 2006

New Zealand Police has invited four leading overseas criminologists to join police staff in a two-day research symposium at The Royal New Zealand Police College on 10 and 11 April.

Over 100 attendees will take part, sharing policing research and case studies. The attendees are mostly police staff but also include staff from partner organisations and academics.

Symposium host, National Manager: Training and Professional Development Superintendent Alistair (Olly) Beckett, says many police staff are involved in research as an integral part of their jobs and the symposium will bring people together to encourage further developments in policing research in New Zealand.

"Policing research brings together many disciplines to help police and its partners reduce victimisation and maintain safe and secure communities. It goes far beyond forensic science and computer technology. Using research to guide policing is of great strategic importance to the future of New Zealand Police."

The four international guest speakers are:

Professor David Weisburd is a Professor of Law and Criminal Justice at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland USA, and is president of the Academy of Experimental Criminology. He has been the principal investigator for a series of major funded studies of policing including the Minneapolis Hot Spots Experiment and the Jersey City Drug Market Analysis Experiment. He is author or editor of 14 books and over 60 scientific articles that cover topics including crime at place, violent crime, white collar crime, policing, illicit markets, criminal justice statistics and social deviance.

He will be talking about policing with more emphasis on places where crime occurs rather than the people involved. He believes place-based policing is a more efficient and effective way to combat crime and disorder and that it raises fewer ethical and legal problems for police.

Professor Betsy Stanko has been the Senior Advisor for Strategic Analysis with the London Metropolitan Police since 2003. She has previously been a Professor of Criminology and published over 60 books and articles of which the most cited is Intimate Intrusions: Women's Experiences of Male Violence (1985). From 1997-2002 she was Director of the UK Economic and Social Research Council's Violence Research Programme and in 2000-2002 she led a Home Office project Understanding and Responding to Hate Crime.

She will be talking about strategic changes police services can make using global research on violence against women and hate crime. She will also be involved in a workshop later in the week for practitioners and policy-makers working across the family violence sector.

Professor Peter Grabosky is a Professor at the Australian National University Research School of Social Sciences. He has been Deputy Director of the Australian Institute of Criminology, President of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology and has served on the Board of Directors and was Deputy Secretary General of the International Society of Criminology. He has led Australian research on victims of crime and violence. His general interests are in policing and harnessing resources outside the public sector in the furtherance of public administration.

He will be talking about policing in the 21st century, which he describes as a complex environment where future influences will include globalisation, demographics and a number of potential ‘shocks’ of varying likelihood and impact. He says the enduring climate of fiscal restraint will require unprecedented creativity and resourcefulness on the part of police services.

Associate Professor Lorraine Mazerolle is an Associate Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Griffith University (Queensland), Deputy Director of the Key Centre for Ethics, Law, Governance and Justice and Vice President of the Academy of Experimental Criminologists. She is the recipient of numerous US and Australian research grants on topics such as problem-orientated policing, police technologies, community crime control, civil remedies, street-level drug enforcement and policing public housing sites.

She will be talking about the Drug Policy Modelling Project, which is a $7.7 million programme that explores the inter-disciplinary complexities of Australian drug policy. The programme has involved a review of drug law enforcement strategies and a prototype system for analysing drug law enforcement interventions.

ENDS

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