Security 21 Projects

This page gives an archive of projects undertaken by Security 21 prior to the inception of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Policing and Security in 2008.

Selected publications arising from these projects are listed on the Publications page of this website.

Policing in the 21^st Century (ARC Linkage Grant - Linkage Partner: Australian Federal Police)

This project designed and evaluated an innovative policing strategy for the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). The project team, including members of the Australian Federal Police, conducted an exhaustive inventory of mechanisms for informing and consulting the public, and for empowering communities in the co-production of public safety. A framework was developed to use the mechanisms best suited to the ACT, and to integrate these with existing strategies of restorative justice and intelligence-driven policing. The project also evaluated the impact of the new policing strategies on citizen satisfaction with police performance, perceptions of public safety, and measures of crime.

The New Policing: Partnerships, Resources and Modes of Governance (ARC Linkage Grant - Linkage Partner: Victoria Police)

This project aimed to establish Australia as a world leader in policing research and policing practice. Following an exhaustive review of current approaches in Victoria and internationally, and backed up by needs assessment, a series of pilot programs at selected sites allowed the development of innovative models for securing and allocating resources that support innovative policing partnerships involving government, the business sector, non-government agencies, community-based organisations and citizens. The collaboration with Victoria Police provided a model for police-university partnership across Australia, and the pilot programs that were implemented and developed are replicable widely in Austalia and overseas.

Information about this project is available on the Victoria Police website under Nexus Policing Project. The project was showcased at the Nexus Policing: Binding Research to Practice conference.

Resourcing Public Law Enforcement Agencies in the 21^st Century: Coercion, Sale and Gift (ARC Discovery Grant)

This project is analysing three basic means of enhancing the resources of public law enforcement agencies: circumstances wherein police command cooperation from private institutions; those where police buy and sell services; and those where police are the beneficiaries of private sponsorship. The potentials and limits of these three forms of exchange are being studied in several Australian jurisdictions, in light of global developments. The project aims to assist governments in coping with the growing demand for police services in a climate of enduring fiscal restraint.

The Governance of Synthetic Illicit Drugs (National Drug Law Enforcement Research Fund)

This project sought to identify outstanding examples of the ways in which police harness external resources to control illicit synthetic drugs. It categorised and analysed best practice examples of law enforcement partnerships with government, businesses, and social service agencies. It specified the institutional properties of the partnership in question; resources invested in the partnership by the respective parties, costs incurred, or savings realised by the law enforement agency and its partner; and crime control benefits achieved as a result of the partnership. The projected was also interested in issues such as public accountability and distributive consequences.