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Better more cameras than more crime

In a bid to combat crime, Britain has made a massive investment in closed circuit cameras – with as many as 4.2 million having been installed.

Yet, the evidence suggests that this may have been for little benefit – with only 3% of street robberies in London being solved with the help of the ubiquitous cameras.

Some suggest that this simply proves the need for more cameras; that it is time to feed the grid into a comprehensive database, to post images on the internet, to use the power of facial recognition technology to spot and track suspects.

Is this an approach that should be adopted in Australia? Or is the consequent loss of privacy worse than the crime such measures are meant to curb?

It is important that audience members are seated by 6.35pm as the event will be screened live.

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Speakers

For

• Christine Nixon is the Chair of the Victorian Bushfire Recovery Authority, and former Chief Commissioner of Police in Victoria, being the first woman in Australia to reach this rank. She was responsible for an organisation of 14,000 staff and an annual budget of $1.6 billion operating out of 550 work locations, including 330 police stations, throughout Victoria. She served with NSW police for over thirty years rising to become Assistant Commissioner. Christine is renowned for her anti-corruption stance, driving a cultural and organisational change in the Victorian Police, whilst often facing sustained attacks from entrenched interest groups.
• Peter Price AOM is Chairman of Crime stoppers Australia, and Director of Public Affairs for Crime Stoppers International. In South Africa, he had been a victim of crime, and was profoundly affected by it. He joined Crimestoppers Australia in 1999. Over ten years he welded the organisation from a disparate organisation with no single brand or organisational structure into the second most successful crime stoppers in the world. The strategic business and marketing plan he developed is now the model for Crime Stoppers organisations globally.
• Peter Homel PSM is Research Manager for the Crime Reduction and Review Program at the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC), and an an internationally recognised crime prevention expert. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Griffith University’s Key Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice and Governance in the School of Criminology. Peter is particularly experienced in the translation of evidence and research into applied practice, and one focus of his work is the development, implementation and evaluation of crime prevention policies

Against

• Julian Burnside AO QC is a barrister specialising in commercial litigation, and has acted in many high profile cases, including the 'Cash for Comment' inquiry and the Tampa litigation. He is immediate past President of Liberty Victoria, and has acted pro bono in many human rights cases. He is the author of a book of essays on language and etymology, Wordwatching (Scribe, 2004) and Watching Brief, (Scribe, 2007) a collection of his essays and speeches about the justice system and human rights. In 2004 he was elected as a Living National Treasure.
• Paul Wilson OAM is Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences and Chair of Criminology at Bond University. He was Acting Director, Australian Institute of Criminology 1986-1991 and Director of Research. Professor Wilson was recently on the Advisory Board for the NRMA. He is a consultant to a private security organisation, and is a media commentator on crime and social issues. In 2003 he was awarded the Medal of The order of Australia for Services to Education particularly as a writer and lecturer in the field of criminology.
• (To be confirmed)

Further details to be announced. Please check back.

Chair:

Dr Simon Longstaff is Executive Director of St James Ethics Centre. Simon spent five years studying and working as a member of Magdalene College, Cambridge. Having won scholarships to study at Cambridge, he read for the degrees of Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy. He was inaugural President of The Australian Association for Professional & Applied Ethics and is a Director of a number of companies. He is a Fellow of the World Economic Forum and a member of the International Advisory Committee of the Foreign Policy Association, based in New York. Simon has been Executive Director of St James Ethics Centre since shortly after it was founded.