South Africans take their safety — or lack thereof — very seriously. And so we should. A new book co-authored by John Cartwright and Clifford Shearing explores ideas around the subject that are as refreshing and thought-provoking as its title, Where’s the Chicken? Making South Africa Safe.

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The paper provides an overview of current oversight and accountability mechanisms for the private security industry, including past regulatory provisions. It examines the challenges and limitations of these mechanisms and highlights potential areas of focus to strengthen accountability in the private security industry, concluding with recommendations.

Irvin Kinnes (Centre of Criminology) and Gareth Newham (ISS) write about why an anti-corruption agency should not be in the SAPS in a recent issue of the SA Crime Quarterly.

Where’s The Chicken? is a recently released book with new innovative ideas about making South Africa safe, written by John Cartwright & Clifford Shearing from the Centre of Criminology. Read more...

Feeding Southern Africa's Cities. Picador Africa (Pan MacMillan). Due out September 2012. Written by Centre of Criminology researcher Leonie Joubert, photos by Eric Miller, with funding from the Open Society Foundation.

A delegation from the Community and Policing in Transition Peace Project, Northern Ireland attended a panel discussion organised together with the Centre of Criminology, in the Moot Court, University of Cape Town, on March 1st 2012.

The winners of the third annual Climate Change Leadership Awards were announced on 29 March 2012 at a carbon neutral event held in Sandton Johannesburg. The awards are the first in Africa that recognises and celebrates headship in climate change response and improvement. Awards went to businesses, communities, youth, schools and individuals leading the way in climate change retort and mitigation.

Santam won the Financials category for its part sponsorship of a research project in partnership with the CSIR, University of Cape Town and WWF, the outcome of which illustrates how human-induced impacts on the ecological buffering capacity of the system have an equal or greater impact on risk, as compared to future climate change predictions.

Students from the Centre of Criminology participated in two sessions at the International Centre for the Prevention of Crime (ICPC) colloquium held in Cape Town recently. The honours students attended the Criminal Justice and Crime Prevention workshop and a workshop on Cities, Development and Armed Violence as well as a parallel session on The Role of Policing in Crime Prevention. Read more...

Alfred Muteru, currently a research affiliate from the African Leadership Centre, Kings College London, represented the Centre of Criminology at the 3rd Annual Intelligence Strategies for Law Enforcers Conference in Pretoria.

The Centre of Criminology has been awarded a GLOBAL CHANGE, SOCIETY AND SUSTAINABILITY (GCGC) grant from the DST through the National Research Foundation for a period of three years in support of the Environmental Security Programme.

Leonie Joubert, a researcher at the Centre of Criminology will soon publish a book on Food Security. In a recent article, written by Felicity Lewis, in The Guardian on the problem of the soaring rates of diabetes, obesity and heart disease in developing countries, Leonie comments on this problem in South Africa.

Julie Berg and Jean-Pierre Nouveau write about regulating private security in South Africa in a recent issue of the SA Crime Quarterly.

‘Police and the policing of conflict: reflections from Africa’ was the topic of a recent issue of the African Security Review, published by the Institute for Security Studies. Elrena van der Spuy was the editor of this section of the December 2011 issue.

The Centre of Criminology is a member of the African Climate and Development Initiative at the University of Cape Town. The ACDI co-ordinates research and training on climate change and sustainable development from an African perspective. Environmental security is the research role the Centre plays in this initiative.

A recent research study was conducted by the CSIR, Santam, the Centre of Criminology, University of Cape Town and WWF in the Southern Cape titled "Insurance in a Changing Risk Landscape: Local Lessons from the Southern Cape of South Africa". Read more...

Lindela Mjenxane and Khanyiswa Zangqa from Beyond Expectation Environmental Project were nominated as finalists in the Enviropaedia Eco-logic Awards held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre on Saturday 19 November 2011. Read more...

The Centre of Criminology in collaboration with Project 90 by 2030 hosted the final Changing Lives seminar for 2011 on 17 November 2011. The topic of discussion was Recycling. Read more...

The African Police Civiilian Oversight Forum (APCOF) and the Centre of Criminology are holding a Round Table Discussion on Accountability and the Private Security Industry. This will be held in the Town House Hotel, Plein Street, Cape Town on Tuesday 11 October 2011, 10.00 am. Read more...

In the latest issue of the South African Crime Quarterly Julie Berg and Clifford Shearing write on crime prevention being the "second cousin" within the South African Criminal Justice family. Read more...

Writing on the Correspondence page in Nature, Deon Nel, Clifford Shearing and Belinda Reyers report on their research into how communities should manage the increased risks associated with climate change. Read more...

Elrena van der Spuy will take part in peacekeeping training, with members of the South African Police Service, in Pretoria this week. The participatory research involves starting training at 5h45 in the morning with an hour dedicated to a combination of drill, 'battle craft', push-ups and running. Later in September Elrena will take part in workshops organised by Defence Web on public order policing and peacekeeping. Read more...

The latest International Society for Criminology World Congress was held in Kobe, Japan from 5-9 August 2011. The main theme of the conference was "Global Socio-Economic Crisis and Crime Control Policies: Regional and National Comparison". Julie Berg, presented a paper at the conference on Security Governance Innovations: The Effects of FIFA’s Governance on the Policing of the 2010 World Cup. Read more...

A new book, The New Environmental Governance (by Gunningham N, Holley C and Shearing C), has recently been published Earthscan, of the Taylor and Francis Group. Read more...

The Centre of Criminology in collaboration with Project 90 by 2030 held a seminar on Food Security on Thursday, 25 August 2011. Speakers included Jane Battersby-Lenard (EGS, UCT), Roger Jacques & Beth McKellar-Basset(SEED) and Anri Landman (Siyakhana). The seminarwas chaired by Leonie Joubert (Centre of Criminology, UCT) Read more...

The Centre welcomed back Prof. Bill Dixon from Keele University, who spoke to students and staff at the Centre of Criminology on "What is Criminology For?". Read more...

The Centre of Criminology at the University of Cape Town, in collaboration with the Regulatory Institutions Network (RegNet) at the Australian National University, held a one-day workshop to explore the emerging 'New Environmental Governance (NEG)' framework on the 28th of July 2011 at the Palm House Hotel in Kenilworth, Cape Town. Read more...

Philip Stenning, Professor at the Griffith University in Australia visited Cape Town recently and held two seminars for students at the Centre of Criminology. Philip is a distinguished academic, writer, and researcher, who is currently a Professor at the Griffith University in Australia, specialising in the areas of police and policing, and private security. Read more...

Three new flooding reports, produced by the UCT Centre of Criminology, have been recently released. The reports were compiled by Laura Drivdal, a PhD student at the Centre interested in the adaption to the risk of flooding in Cape Town. The first of the reports concerns water in Cape Town, the second is concerned with climate change and flooding relations, whilst the third concerns water management.

Welcome to our first newsletter for 2011. Through this we share information from the Centre of Criminology about events, projects and publications Read more...

The Centre of Criminology has released its 2010 Annual Report.

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Security, Rights and Democracy was the title of the final seminar in the Criminology at the Edge workshop series. The seminar was held from Friday 8th April to Sunday 10th April 2011 at the University of Cape Town’s Law Faculty. Speakers included Ian Loader, Professor of Criminology and Director of the Centre of Criminology, University of Oxford; Dr Liora Lazarus, Lecturer in Law and fellow at St Anne’s College, Oxford; and Dr Bethan Loftus, Research Officer in the Centre of Criminology, Oxford. Clifford Shearing from the Centre of Criminology (UCT) and Monique Marks (UKZN) convened the workshop. Read more...

Key International policing scholars attended a discussion on "African Developments in Policing" at the Centre of Criminology on Thursday evening the 14th April at the Centre of Criminology.

The aim of this report is to outline the findings of research that was conducted by the Centre of Criminology, University of Cape Town, in 2010 on the sustainability of collaborative security governance arrangements arising from the 2010 Soccer World Cup.

The Fifth International Graduate Legal Research Conference (IGLRC) was hosted by King's College London School of Law and Graduate School on the 7th and 8th April in Central London. Sophie Nakueira, a doctoral student at the Centre of Criminology presented her posted on "Floating Sovereignties". Read more...

The Centre together with Project 90 by 2030, co-hosted the 2nd Changing Lives seminar on the 18th November 2010. The theme of the seminar was Changing Lives: Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency. View a video of the talk on the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) given by Liz McDaid. Read more...

Podcast now available. Read more...

The Centre of Criminology together with Project 90 by 2030 hosted the first "Changing Lives" seminar on Thursday 5th August 2010 Read more...

Project 90x2030, Centre of Criminology and Cambridge Programme for Sustainable Learning (CPSL) hosted an inaugural seminar where Peter Willis spoke on WILLIS “The World I’d Like to Live In Someday”. Clifford Shearing of the Centre of Criminology responded. Read more...

The most recent seminar in the Environmental Security Seminar Series for 2009 was held on the 3rd September in the Kramer Law Building with Prof Mark Swilling as the key speaker. Read more...

The Centre of Criminology, in partnership with Partners for Change and Santam, held 'The Ecocentric Journey conference' Read more...