Criminology in the 21st Century: Public Good or Private Interest? — The Sir John Barry Memorial Lecture
| Date | 01 August 2002 |
| DOI | 10.1375/acri.35.2.238 |
| Published date | 01 August 2002 |
| Author | Paul Wiles |
238 THE AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY
VOLUME 35 NUMBER 2 2002 PP.238–252
Address for correspondence: Professor Paul Wiles, Director of Research, Home Office,
50 Queen Anne’s Gate, London SW1 9AT, United Kingdom.
Criminology in the 21st Century: Public
Good or Private Interest? — The Sir John
Barry Memorial Lecture
Paul Wiles
Director of Research, Home Office,UK
Can I begin by saying what a great privilege it is to be asked to deliver the Sir
John Barry Memorial Lecture. I feel somewhat overawed at speaking in the
shadow of such a major legal thinker and activist.
The theme of this year’s Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology
Conference, is “Criminology in the 21st Century: Public Good or Private Interest?”
and I have taken that as the title and theme of what I want to talk about. However,
I want to talk about this, not in the sense of whether criminal justice services
should be privatised, but in the sense of whether criminology is a public good or a
private interest. Taken in this way, the theme is particularly apposite to my recent
experience. For most of my working life I have been an academic criminologist —
latterly as a professor of criminology and for a while the Dean of a law school.
However, just over 18 months ago, I left academia and became a civil servant. In
the argot of the British press I moved from being a Don to a Mandarin. I was
appointed as a member of the Management Board of the Home Office in London
and as their Director of Research, Development and Statistics. Questions about the
public role of criminological research are, therefore, of more than passing interest
to me in my new job.
Before going on to address that issue directly I need to say just a little about the
political context in which I confront the question. First, let me say something about
the Home Office. The United Kingdom is a federation of four countries and three
major jurisdictions. The Home Office, in London, has UK-wide responsibility on
some issues, but on most issues concerned with criminal justice only has responsibility
for England & Wales.1The Home Office is not quite the equivalent of either a
Ministry of Justice or a Ministry of the Interior. It has responsibility for policing the
penal system and largely for substantive criminal law, but not for the courts or
judiciary. However, the Home Office also has responsibility for a wide range of other
issues. I am responsible for research and statistical data on all of these topics and they
go well beyond the field of criminology. However, the two things to note, compared
at least with Australia, are that research and statistics are managed together and this is
done directly within the government department. I have the advantage of being able
to mange research and statistical data as part of one enterprise to understand crime.
But I do not have an independent role outside of government and am directly
involved with Ministers and other officials in policy making.
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