Security 21 was active until 2008 when the Australian Research Council, as a part of its Special Research Initiatives funding scheme, awarded Security 21, Griffith University and the University of Queensland, a Centre of Excellence in Policing and Security from 2008-2012.

This website is an archive of projects and materials that were active prior to 2008.

The goal of Security 21 was to understand the revolution that has characterised policing in western industrial societies over the past 25 years, and to contribute to the successful evolution of policing in the decades ahead. Since the late 1970s, there has been a proliferation of organisational forms relating to who authorizes policing, and who actually performs the function. These trends are best exemplified in the growth of private policing, and in the increasing necessity of public police to harness resources and institutions outside their ranks in furtherance of their mission. This latter issue was at the core of Security 21 activity.

An enduring climate of fiscal restraint, and the recognition that our public police cannot be everywhere and cannot do everything on their own, led governments around the world to encourage their citizens to assume greater responsibility for crime prevention. Security 21’s research and training was aimed at ensuring that the various institutions and energies that contribute to public safety would operate in an effective, efficient and just manner.

The Centre’s members and partners across Australia and around the world contributed innovative thinking and innovative research to the development of new strategies of security and justice that extend from the micro-level to the global.