The John Barry Memorial Lecture

The Honourable Sir John Vincent William Barry, 1903-1969, Judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria from 1947, Chairman of Victoria's Parole Board from 1957 and Foundation Chairman of The Board of Studies in Criminology in the University of Melbourne from 1951, was a distinguished graduate of this University and a great writer. His three principal works were biographies of Alexander Maconchie and John Price, and his last, undelivered lectures on "The Courts and Criminal Punishments.

Sir John did much to stimulate the growth of the study of criminology, not only in this University, but also throughout Australia and abroad. The John Barry Memorial Fund was given to the University by the Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology to endow a series of lectures.

2006: Civilising Security by Prof Ian Loader, Director of the Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford. November 23, 6.30pm, the Public Policy Lecture Theatre, 2/234 Queensberry Street. In 2006, the JV Barry Memorial Lecture forms part of the Dean's lecture series. Refreshments will be served after the lecture.

This is a FREE PUBLIC LECTURE - For catering purposes, RSVP if attending to Jean Rodrigues on 8344 9440 or by email jar@unimelb.edu.au

About Civilising Security by Ian Loader

Security has become the vernacular of our age – a leitmotiv that runs through the so-called ‘war on terror’, problems of everyday crime and disorder, the reconstruction of ‘weak’ or ‘failed’ states, and the dramatic renaissance of the private security industry. Security is the subject of fierce debate between those state and non-state actors who promote or promise it as an unqualified good and critics who pinpoint its liberty and democracy threatening effects and contend that security must be tightly constrained or even transcended.

But what does it mean – and take – for individuals to be secure? What is the relationship between security and the practices of the modern state? How are the conditions of security themselves to be secured? Can we civilize security and release security’s civilizing potential?

In this lecture, Professor Loader outlines and defends the view that security has always been and remains a valuable public good, a platform for and education in political society, and argue that the democratic state has a necessary and virtuous role to play in its realization. In so doing, he offers a critical review of the ways in which security is framed and reacted to within contemporary debate paying particular attention to the claims of the security lobby, those who view security as a practice to be resisted in the name of liberty, and those who purport to transcend the debate using ideas such as human security. His argument is that the current debate is unhelpfully structured between actors who seek to make security a pervasive element of social and political life, and those who respond to this prospect by refusing the idea that security has any place in a viable democratic politics. Against this, he sets out the case for security - understood sociologically as a thick public good - and considers what it may mean to foster and sustain a security practice in which security is an axiomatic rather than pervasive dimension of social relations.

Prof Ian Loader

Ian Loader is Professor of Criminology at the University of Oxford, Director of the Oxford Centre for Criminology, and a Fellow of All Souls College. He is author of Youth, Policing and Democracy (1996, Palgrave), Crime and Social Change in Middle England (2000, Routledge, with E. Girling and R. Sparks) and Policing and the Condition of England: Memory, Politics and Culture (2003, Oxford, with A. Mulcahy), as well as several papers on contemporary transformations in policing and security. He is currently working in two broad fields on enquiry: (i) the historical sociology of criminology and crime policy and their intersections with political ideologies and culture, work that is being developed in a book he is currently preparing on Public Criminology?, and (ii) the social meanings and effects of security consumption and the rise and impact of new security actors, both 'domestically' and trans-nationally. His lecture is based on a book of the same title he has recently written with Neil Walker, to be published by Cambridge University Press in March 2007. Email: ian.loader@crim.ox.ac.uk

2006: Civilising Security by Professor Ian Loader, Director of the Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford. Transcript of the lecture as a PDF file, reproduced with kind permission.

2005: Overcoming Entrenched Disadvantage: Another Key Anti-Terrorism Measure by the Hon. Fred Chaney AO, former Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. Transcript of the lecture as a PDF file, reproduced with kind permission.

2004: Policing the 21st Century: Technology, Terrorism and Transnational Crime by Commissioner Mick Keelty, Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police. Transcript of the lecture, reproduced with kind permission.

2003: Justice for Families and Young Offenders: A unified court system as a 21st century reform by the Hon. Alastair Nicholson AO RFD QC, Chief Justice of the Family Court of Australia. Transcript of the lecture, reproduced with kind permission.

2002: Confronting the Future of Policing: Technology, Professionalism and Partnerships by Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon, Victoria Police. Transcript of the lecture, reproduced with kind permission.

Previous Barry Lecturers

• 2006 Professor Ian Loader
• 2005 The Hon Fred Chaney AO
• 2004 Police Commissioner Mick Keelty APM
• 2003 The Hon Alastair Nicholson AO RFD QC
• 2002 Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon
• 2001 Professor Paul Wiles
• 2000 Professor Hans-Jurgen Kerner
• 1998 Professor Michael Tonry
• 1996 Professors Rebecca Dobash and Russell Dobash
• 1994 Dr Elizabeth Stanko
• 1992 Professor Stanley Cohen
• 1991 Professor John Braithwaite
• 1990 Sir Max Bingham, Q.C.
• 1989 Mr Ian Temby, Q.C.
• 1988 Professor Marcia Neave
• 1987 The Hon. Christopher J. Summer
• 1986 Professor Donald Cressey
• 1985 Professor Gordon Hawkins
• 1984 Senator Gareth Evans
• 1983 Mr Francis X. Costigan, Q.C.
• 1982 Professor Richard W. Harding
• 1981 Mr William Clifford
• 1980 Professor Simon Dinitz
• 1979 The Hon. Mr. Justice Michael D. Kirby
• 1976 Professor Sam B. Hammond
• 1975 Mr Ray W. Whitrod
• 1974 The Hon. Justice Roma Mitchell
• 1973 Professor Norval R. Morris
• 1972 Professor Geoffrey Sawyer