Twenty years since Fitzgerald: assessing the influence of research on the development of evidence-based policy in Queensland and beyond

Speaker:
Professor Paul Mazerolle
Director, Key Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice and Governance (KCELJAG) and the Violence Research and Prevention Program, Griffith University, Brisbane

Abstract:
Two immediate consequences of the Fitzgerald report were the creation of the Criminal Justice Commission (CJC) with a research division and a wide mandate to research the criminal justice system; and the formation of the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Griffith University and the School of Justice at Queensland University of Technology. In this paper, we illustrate, using selected case studies, how both reforms have had a powerful and enduring impact on research into crime and criminal justice policy, and wider social issues. Two examples that illustrate the ways in which data generated by the CJC transformed police practices in Queensland are the research on high speed pursuits and the long-term evaluation of a series of experiments on the effectiveness of beat policing. The impact of the research carried out by the two university departments is arguably even greater than the CJC research, certainly in the international arena. This is illustrated by reference to the program of research at Griffith on early intervention and developmental crime prevention, as well as the extensive research conducted by Griffith criminologists on situational crime prevention. Both lines of research are concerned with evidence-based prevention policies, and both have had a major influence nationally and internationally, putting Australia at the forefront of rigorous crime prevention research.