Deputy Commissioner Alex Murray QPM, Chief Superintendent Lee Hill, Superintendent David Cowan, John Denley, Dr Barak Arial, chaired by Dr Justin Ready
At focussed deterrence panel discussion you will hear about 3 separate, yet linked, operational strategies where police used focused deterrence approaches to tackle public violence and knife crime. You will hear about how these e strategies were implemented on the ground and the responses by officers and offenders. You will also hear results as to whether the strategy actually reduced crime. Please join us for the fascinating discussion.
Biographies
Alex has worked in the CID, Counter terrorism and local policing. He is a firearms, CT and public order commander. In West Midlands Police he was temporary ACC for Crime prior to becoming Commander (Specialist Crime) in the Met (trafficking, online child abuse, flying squad, economic crime, cyber crime, major crime). He also assisted with leading in the areas of COVID and diversity. Just prior to moving to West Mercia he was the Chief Officer lead for violence in London.
In 2008 graduated from Cambridge University with a thesis developing the understanding of police legitimacy within Muslim communities. He is the founder of the Society of Evidence Based Policing and has conducted RCT’s, many with a focus on behavioural science. He has worked on police training programmes in India, Cambodia and Europe. In 2014 he received the Superintendents award for Excellence in Policing and has been recognised by George Mason University’s Centre for Evidence Based Policing. He is a visiting scholar at Cambridge University and in 2017 he was awarded an OBE. In 2019 he was also the SRO for the spending review submission to the Home Office
Superintendent Dave Cowan has been with Victoria Police for 26 years and has experience as a detective and a prosecutor and has lead a range of reforms in the summary criminal justice system. He currently manages the Community Safety Division within the Corporate Strategy and Operational Improvement Department. The Division comprises of 5 Units including the Drug and Alcohol Strategy Unit, the Victims Advisory Unit, the Safer Communities Unit, Diversion Alignment Project and the newly formed Policing Innovation and Research Unit.
Prior to moving to the current role, Dave lead a range of organisational wide reviews including a review of Counter Terrorism leading to the establishment of the CT Command. He lead a review of persons in police custody which resulted in the reclassification of all custody facilities state-wide and cells upgrades at 80 locations. He lead a governance review of Family Violence which resulted in the establishment of the first Family Violence Command in Australia. He also reviewed volume crime scene services in Victoria Police and implemented the Frontline Volume Crime Strategy. Dave recently lead the development of the Victoria Police Corporate Plan 2016 -2018 which shapes the future direction of the organisation aligned to the Blue Paper.
Dave has a Graduate Diploma in Executive Leadership and in 2013 was awarded the Australian Institute of Police Management, Australasian Policing Scholarship where he undertook studies at the JFK Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
Barak Ariel is a Professor of Experimental Criminology at the Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, and an Associate Professor at the Hebrew University, Israel.
Dr Justin Ready is an Associate Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Griffith University. He received his PhD at Rutgers University, where he served as Project Director in the Centre for Crime Prevention Studies. He later worked as a Senior Research Associate at the Police Foundation in Washington, DC. His research focuses on crime hot spots, the link between crime and public health, and the impact of new technology on police practices. He is the 2013 recipient of the Young Experimental Scholar Award and the 2016 recipient of the Award for the Outstanding Experimental Field Trial. Recently, he has studied the evolution police command and control structures, the effects of active shooter incidents on officer memory, and the impact of body cameras and GPS technology on police operations. His publications have appeared in academic journals such as Criminology, the Journal of Experimental Criminology and Justice Quarterly.