History of Criminology at Melbourne

Founded in 1951, the Department of Criminology was the first of its kind in Australia.

Originally established as a board of studies, since 1976 Criminology has been a Department in the Faculty of Arts and also delivers the Forensic Psychology and Socio-Legal Studies programs.

Chairs

• Hon. Sir John V. Barry 1951 - 1958 Head of Department; 1959 - 1969 Chairman, Board of Studies
• Norval Morris 1952 - 1957 Secretary to Board
• Stanley Johnston 1958 Secretary to Board, 1959 - 1973 Head of Department; 1974 - 1978 Chairman
• Prof Sam Hammond 1979 - 1982 (May) Chairman
• Dennis Challinger 1982 - 1984
• Dr Austin Lovegrove 1985 - 1987; 2002 - 2005
• Prof Ken Polk 1988 - 1991
• Prof Arie Freiberg 1992 - 2002
• Prof Alison Young 2006 - current

Read the history of the Department prepared in 2001 in a commemorative booklet for the 50th Anniversary.

• 1951-2001 Commemorative booklet

Below is an excerpt from the Commemorative Booklet, written by Norval Morris and published in the Australian Law Journal, Vol. 26, 1952

The Department of Criminology University of Melbourne

The University of Melbourne established a Department of Criminology in March, 1951. As this Department is composed differently from any other such University Department in the British Commonwealth, a consideration of its structure, functions, and aims may be justified even though, in this first year, more plans than achievements have been produced.

The definition of criminology adopted by the Department conditions the scope of the work it undertakes. The Department regards criminology as including all knowledge relating to the causes of criminal conduct, and the prevention and correction of that conduct. It is concerned with the activities, personalities, and environments of criminals, and with the means which society employs to deal with them. Criminology specifically includes but is not restricted to, the study of the sociological, psychological, and legal aspects of crime and criminals. One important part of criminology is the subject which has come to be known as penology.

Composition

The Departments of Criminology at Cambridge, Oxford and London Universities are controlled by lawyers and, particularly at Cambridge, tend to turn their attention in upon the symmetry and structure of the criminal law. It is the aim at Melbourne University to cast the net wider, and, since criminology is a derivative science demanding inter-faculty collaboration, to select members of the Department so as to combine the knowledge of the lawyer, the psychiatrist, the psychologist, and the sociologist.

The Chairman, Mr. Justice Barry of the Victorian Supreme Court, is well known for his interest in and understanding of criminology. The Vice-Chairman, Professor Oeser, is Head of the Department of Psychology. Also on the Board governing the Department are the following: Professor Parton, the Vice-Chancellor; Professor Zelman Cowan, Dean of the Law Faculty; Miss Ruth Hoban, Head of the Department of Social Studies; Dr. Donald Buckle, a practicing psychiatrist and Senior Lecturer in Psychopathology; and Dr. Norval Morris, Senior Lecturer in Law, who has studied Criminology at London University and in the English convict prisons, and who acts as Secretary to the Department.

Not only does the Board thus draw together the principal relevant disciplines, but it is assured of the generous cooperation of four senior civil servants who administer the police, the prisons, and the institutions for neglected and delinquent children. These gentlemen, together with the Government Medical Officer, will keep the Department in touch with the realities of administrative problems by attending meetings of the Board in an advisory capacity.

The functions of the Department can be conveniently, if artificially, divided into teaching, research, law reform, and clinical practice.

Teaching

Courses of lectures in criminology are given to all Law students in their final year, to Psychology students as part of their course in Psychopathology, and to Social Science students. Approval has been given for the establishment of Criminology as a general Arts subject occupying two lectures and one demonstration per week throughout the year. This subject will be available only to students who have passed Psychology Part I; it will form an integral part of the Law, Social Studies, and Arts courses. It will be optional for Law students taking the degree course who must take one second year Arts subject which may be criminology. The Law students’ reaction to this opportunity seems to be favourable, and already many have enrolled for Psychology I and Criminology as their Arts subjects.

It is planned to develop courses for Probation Officers, for those working in penal institutions, and for other field workers. Here, as in the development of Criminology as an Arts subject, the Department is looking to the assistance of Professor Albert Morris, Chairman of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Boston University, who will spend the ensuing academic year with this Department as Visiting Fulbright Professor.

Research

The Department’s main research project is an investigation into the supposedly reformative pressures brought to bear on children in the Victorian institutions for juvenile delinquents. This project is planned to occupy several years and will require considerable research assistance. It is hoped that it will eventually begin to remedy the paucity of knowledge concerning the psychological and sociological pressures on juvenile delinquents in re-educative centers. Not only will this information be of assistance in the solution of practical administrative problems in Victoria, but it should contribute significantly to world-wide general theoretic understanding of an important aspect of child welfare.

A necessary background to any research is a detailed understanding of the existing statistical material available in the community being studied. Throughout last year, therefore, the Department employed a research assistant who, under the Secretary’s supervision, conducted a critical survey of police, judicial, and criminal statistics in Victoria. The final report has already proved of practical value to a committee appointed by the Minister of Immigration to enquire into crime amongst immigrants.

As well as this fundamental information, the Department is collecting, with the Attorney-General’s cooperation, a library of the transcripts of evidence, directions to juries, and judgments in all criminal trials where transcripts are made.

Such statistical information and the records of local criminal trials, together with the Department’s constant endeavour to keep in touch with developments in research and practice in criminology in England, Scandinavia, and the United States, should prepare the ground in which research may flourish.

Law Reform

The formation of the Department created considerable public interest. Through the newspapers, in periodicals, over the radio, and before many societies, the aims and views of the Department have found expression. These views have tended to advocate substantial changes in the penal system. This is attributable less to the reforming zeal of the members of the Department than to the fact that the Victorian penal system has stood for years in need of legislative reform to bring it up to date with the penal system of England and many other countries. It is hoped that the Department will be able to assist those charged with the responsibility of achieving these reforms.

The Department advocates the adoption of a Criminal Code in Victoria and is particularly interested to cooperate in the preparation of a Draft Code when there is sufficient support for this undertaking.

Clinical Practice

Efficient teaching and research in criminology require some regular clinical contact with the delinquents. Mr. Justice Barry in his work as a Judge, and Dr. Donald Buckle in his private practice and as Honorary Psychiatrist to a hospital whose Psychiatric Out-patient Clinic deals extensively with delinquents attending for treatment as a condition of probation orders, are both kept in touch with the personal realities of delinquency.

The Secretary, Dr. Norval Morris, has experience of work in English prisons and intends to increase his involvement in problems of delinquency by living at and taking responsibility for a probation hostel which is being established by an organisation of boys’ clubs. This hostel will cater for delinquent boys between the ages of fourteen and seventeen, and will be a typical probation hostel except that greater efforts than usual will be made to create an actively therapeutic environment for the boys.

These clinical contacts as well as the teaching and research conducted by the Department and its influence on legislation and administrative practice are in themselves socially beneficial developments. If the Department of Criminology can assist to raise a generation of Victorian lawyers more aware of the complexities of the many problems of the punishment of crime, its establishment will be well justified.