page created 14 May 1999

7-9 July 1999, Brisbane, Australia

The Second Conference of Australasian Women and Policing, Emmanual College University of Queensland, Brisbane.
E-mail: inquiry@auspol-women.asn.au

Exactly how well police deliver policing services to women in the community is the issue to be considered by the Second Conference of Australasian Women and Policing to be held at the University of Queensland in Brisbane from the 7-9 July, 1999. Using domestic violence and sexual assault as case studies, the conference will attempt to assess the adequacy and effectiveness of current policing policy and practices for women in the community.

Despite numerous conferences and commissions of inquiry into women’s access to justice over the past two decades, few have ever considered how policing, as the gateway to the criminal justice system, affects women’s access to justice.

This conference has been designed to consider how policing might better meet the needs of all women. The conference has been divided into two separate streams, one designed to support women within policing and the second designed to improve the delivery of policing services to women in the community, including sessions on policing sexual assault, policing family violence and family law, and improving police responses to women and violence. The final day of the conference focuses on workshops designed to provide recommendations in policing practice to a panel of police commissioners prior to the close of the conference.

Keynote speakers include Dr. Jennifer Brown (UK), Professor Frances Heidensohn (UK), Senator Amanda Vanstone, Dr. Quentin Bryce, Professor Regina Graycar. Representatives from Criminal Justice Commission (QLD), National Crime Prevention, Office of the Status of Women, Australasian Centre for Policing Research, Australian Institute of Police Management, Australian Institute of Criminology (Canberra), European Network of Women Police, Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence, CASA House, Domestic Violence Advisory Service, National Women’s Justice Coalition, and a number of other women’s community and legal organisations and services will also attend.

This national conference will be held at the Emmanuel College at the University of Queensland in Brisbane from the 7-9 July 1999.

For further details contact: Australasian Council of Women and Policing Inc. PO Box 755 Dickson ACT 2602 Tel. (02) 6258 7498 or The Conference Organisers, EEO Unit, Queensland Police Service, 100 Roma St, Brisbane QLD 4001. Tel. (07) 3364 6824. Conference papers will be available on disk from the Council after the conference.

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Who’s who at the conference ...

Liz Atkins, Canberra

Liz is Assistant Secretary with the Commonwealth Law Enforcement Coordination Division. She earned a BA/LLB from Sydney University in 1983 and has worked in a number of positions within the public service. She will be presenting a paper on Including women on the law enforcement agenda.

Jill Bolen, New South Wales

Jill joined the Queensland Police Force in 1973 and resigned in 1993, having attained the rank of Chief Superintendent. Since leaving the Queensland Police Service, Jill has been a consultant on policing in both Queensland and New South Wales; she is currently lecturing at the University of Western Sydney in the Faculty of Management and is studying for her PhD. Jill has written various articles on police and policing, including the book "Reform in Policing: Lessons from the Whitrod Era" published by Hawkins Press as part of the Institute of Criminology Monograph Series. An article by Jill (and co-author Janet Ramsay) appears in this edition of The Journal.

Dr. Jennifer Brown, United Kingdom

Jennifer is a renowned researcher and academic in the area of women within policing and other areas of police management. She was a keynote speaker at the First Conference of Australasian Women Police and, with colleague Frances Heidensohn, has recently has completed an international comparison of women in policing. Jennifer and Frances will present a paper to the conference on this topic and another paper titled Global networks and women in policing. Jennifer is also editor of the new International Journal of Police Science and Management (UK).

Quentin Bryce - Sydney

Quentin graduated from the University of Queensland with an Arts/Law degree and was admitted to the Qld Bar in 1965, one of the first Qld women to be admitted. In 1968 she joined the Faculty of Law at the University of Qld. Between 1987-90, Quentin was appointed Queensland Director of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. Between 1988-92, she was a member of the Australian delegation to the United Nations Commission Human Rights in Geneva and an observer at the UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in Vienna and New York. In 1988, she took over the role of Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner. She is currently the Principal of Women’s College, University of Sydney, Presiding member of the NSW Police Constables Education Program Board of Management, Director of the Australian Women’s Cricket Board and Director of the YWCA. In 1988 she was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for services to the community, in particular to women and children.

Marg D’Arcy - Melbourne

Marg has worked in the field of violence against women for the past 17 years. Formerly she was Deputy Director of the Victorian Community Council Against Violence and part of the National Committee on Violence Against Women. She also worked for four years with the Victoria Police to establish their Family Violence Project Office. She is currently the Acting Manager of CASA House, (Centre Against Sexual Assault) Melbourne, which provides crisis care, counselling support and advocacy for past and recent victims/survivors of sexual assault and also coordinates responses to sexual assault after hours throughout Victoria. Marg is a member of the Editorial Committee of Women Against Violence : An Australian Feminist Journal. She will be presenting a paper titled Achieving justice for victim/ survivors of sexual assault.

Commander Barbara Etter, South Australia

Barbara Etter is currently the Director of the Australasian Centre for Policing Research, (formerly known as the National Police Research Unit) in Adelaide and a Commander within the NT Police. Barbara holds a Pharmacy degree, an Honours law degree, an MBA in International Management and a Master of Laws in International Comparative Law. She chaired the Police Commissioners' Policy Advisory Group from 1989 to 1994 and was a co-editor (with AFP Commissioner Mick Palmer) of the book "Police Leadership in Australasia". She will be presenting a session to the conference on The future of women and policing.

Professor Regina Graycar, Sydney

Regina was appointed Commissioner of the NSW Law Reform Commission in 1998. At the time of her appointment she held the Dunhill Madden Butler Chair of Women and the Law at the University of Sydney, the first of its kind in Australasia. Prior to taking that chair in 1997 she was Professor of Law at the University of NSW. In 1996 she was Visiting Professor of Law at the University of British Columbia, Canada. She holds degrees in law from the University of Adelaide and Harvard Law School. She is co-author (with Jenny Morgan) of The hidden gender of law.

Professor Frances Heidensohn - London

Frances is the Head of Department of Social Policy and Politics at the Goldsmith College, University of London. In 1992 she wrote Women in control? The role of women in law enforcement (Oxford). She was a keynote speaker at the First Conference of Australasian Women Police in 1996. In 1998-9 Frances and Dr. Jennifer Brown have been co-writing a book on international comparisons in policing. They will present a paper to the conference on this topic and another paper titled Global networks and women in policing.

Professor Ross Homel - Queensland

Ross is Foundation Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Griffith University. Formerly he was part-time Commissioner of the Criminal Justice Commission. He was editor of the Aust. and NZ Society of Criminology from 1992-95 and in 1997-98 a Visiting Fellow in the Reshaping Australian Institutions Project and Research Affiliate at the ANU. His Phd in behavioural science from Macquarie University resulted in the publication of a book "Policing and punishing the drinking driver" (1988). He also holds a Master of Science degree and a BSci (Hons) degree, both in mathematical statistics.

Jude Irwin - Sydney

Jude is Associate Professor in the Department of Social Work, Social Policy and Sociology at the University of Sydney. She ahs published extensively in the area of social work practice. In 1997 she co-authored (with Prof. Ros Thorpe from James Cook University) Women and Violence: Working for change (Hale and Iremonger, Sydney). Jude’s research and practice interests include violence against women and children and gay and lesbian issues. She has recently completed a study on domestic violence and lesbians and on discrimination in the workplace against gay men and lesbians. She is a member of the NSW Council on Violence Against Women and a past Director of the Australian Centre for Lesbian and Gay Research. Jude will be presenting a paper titled Lesbian domestic violence: Unseen, unheard and discounted.

Sheila Jeffreys - Melbourne

Sheila is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Political Science at the University of Melbourne. She has been active in the Women’s Liberation Movement since 1973, working in campaigns against pornography and male violence and was a founding member of the London Women against Violence in 1980. Her publications include The Spinster and her enemies: Feminism and sexuality (1997), Anticlimax: A feminist perspective on the sexual revolution (1990), The Lesbian Heresy (1993) and most recently, The idea of prostitution (1997). Sheila is presenting a paper titled Policing prostitution - penalise men not women.

Trudy Manders - The Netherlands

Trudy is the current Director of the European Network of Women Police which is based at Amersfoort in The Netherlands and has been hosted to attend the conference by the Police Credit Union. Trudy entered the Dutch Police in 1986 and will be visiting a number of Australian police services and police unions whilst in Australia. She will be presenting a number of sessions at the conference, including Creating a link in the global network of women in policing.

Zoe Rathus - Queensland

Zoe was admitted as a solicitor in Queensland in 1983 with a BA and LLB (Hons) from Queensland University, and has practised mainly in the areas of family and criminal law. She has worked with many women attempting to leave violent male partners and been appalled at the lack of understanding about domestic violence amongst lawyers, in the courts and within the police service and the failure of the legal system to protect women and children from violence. Zoe was also a founding member of the Women's Legal Service in 1984, and became the Co-ordinator in 1989. She is the Past Chair of the Queensland Domestic Violence Council and former member of the Queensland Women's Advisory Committee. She is currently working with the Queensland government on the Taskforce on Women and the Criminal Code. Zoe will be presenting a paper on Policing, women and family law.