Research Programs Overview

CEPS brings together researchers from a wide range of disciplines including criminology, psychology, sociology, international relations, political science, law, ethics and history. Its research programs are organised into four thematic research program areas, each led by a Chief Investigator: Vulnerable Communities; Extending Frontiers; Governing for Security; and Attacking Serious and Organised Crime. The fifth research program - Implementation and Integration supports the other programs by focusing on examining the challenges of ignorance and uncertainty, and how evidence is used to influence policy and practice. All research program areas are interrelated, reflecting the cross-disciplinary nature of CEPS research and the nexus between policing and security.

Vulnerable Communities

This Program aims to:

•  understand more about the community dynamics that underpin resilient and vulnerable communities; 
•  take stock of some of the current approaches (both at the local, state and national level) for building greater social cohesion, harmony and resilience to intergroup conflict and extremism in Australian communities; and
• work closely with industry partners to test, under randomised field trial conditions, some innovative approaches for increasing social cohesion, trust, legitimacy and capacity for communities to self regulate and prevent the proliferation of home-grown national security threats.

Projects:

• Modelling Inter-Group Violence
• National Security and Preparedness Survey (formally the National Social and Cultural Wellbeing Survey
• Queensland Community Engagement Trial (QCET)
• Legitimacy and Policing

Extending Frontiers

This Program deals with emerging issues of governance, police-led peace-building, state capacity, and identifying and neutralising new threats resulting from structural changes in the Asia-Pacific and global international security system. Areas of convergent research interest include:

• the legitimacy of military or police intervention as an order-building process;
• the changing dynamics of law enforcement operations directed toward mitigating corruption or intimidation against targeted populace; and
• resource prioritisation for meeting an increasing array of non-traditional security threats. Globalisation, nationalism and identity politics all factor into understanding these processes in an increasingly uncertain global security environment.

Projects:

• Changing Regional and International Structures and Threats
• Perfomance Models
• Fragile States
• Effectiveness of Counter-Terrorism Strategies in Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand 

Governing for Security

This Program deals with the realities and complexity of the policing and security nexus through studies in politics, history, law, criminology and public policy. This program seeks to understand the conditions that enable individuals and organisations to think of security as a governmental project, of policing as a remedy to threat and attack, of internal threats to policing through corruption and misconduct as a major problem for the maintenance of an effective domestic security. Projects include explorations of the legal frameworks of counter-terrorist policy, problems in co-ordinations of government and co-operation of policing agencies, challenges in the development and effectiveness of integrity systems in policing, and research on the history of security and the conceptualisation of warfare.

Projects:

• Historical Threats and Capabilities
• Legal Frameworks
• Integrity Systems
• Government Coordination and Vulnerable Infrastructures

Attacking Serious and Organised Crime

This Program addresses some of the most significant criminal justice threats facing Australia and the region. This program draws across many of the key disciplines represented within CEPS, and applies them to acquiring more knowledge about criminal behaviour and the attributes of effective investigations, as well as identifying new strategies for the prevention or disruption of serious and organised crime.

Projects:

• Intelligence Methods
• Investigative and Innovation
• Risky People
• Transnational Actors
• Illicit Organisations - Organised Crime and Terrorism

Integration and Implementation

This Program aims to support other CEPS research projects in undertaking research across disciplines and practice areas, in effectively managing ignorance and uncertainty, and in implementing evidence into policy and practice change.

Projects:

• Knowledge Integration and Implementation
• Understanding and Managing Unknowns

Special Projects

• Audit of Police Interventions in Diverse Communities
• Exploring the Experience of Security in Multi-ethnic Communities Undergoing Rapid Change: a Flemington Case Study