NSW: Universities have failed in crime debate: professor

AAP General News (Australia)
08-08-2001
NSW: Universities have failed in crime debate: professor

By Anthony Stavrinos

SYDNEY, Aug 8 AAP - Universities had failed in public debate of crime issues by not
doing enough research and allowing unqualified academics to declare themselves experts,
a Sydney professor said today.

Professor David Dixon from the University of NSW law faculty made the comments at a
seminar in Sydney on ethnicity and crime, hosted by the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board
and the Institute of Criminology.

There had already been robust debate on law and order for many years, but it needed
to be better informed, Professor Dixon told an audience of 150 people at Sydney University
Law School.

"Many (academic) institutions have failed in creating a law and order debate. (It)
has been largely devoid of any kind of evidence base and is largely about rhetoric," he
said.

"I point the finger to some extent at my own type of institution, the universities,
for the lack of really good research which is being produced and the willingness of some
people to speak out on some issues which they don't really have academic competence to
speak on."

Professor Dixon said it was politicians, seeking an easy source of votes, and media
commentators, who used inadequate sources and stereotypes, who appeared to be most prepared
to offer opinions on crime issues.

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KEYWORD: CRIME

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