Ross Homel is Foundation Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, and Director of the University’s Strategic Research Program in the Social and Behavioural Sciences. From 2004 – 2007 he was Director of the Key Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice and Governance at Griffith, and he also served as Head of the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice between 1993 and 1996 and in 2002 and 2003.

He was editor of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology from 1992 to 1995, and was a part-time Commissioner of the Queensland Criminal Justice Commission from February 1994 to April 1999.

Professor Homel’s career focus is the theoretical analysis of crime and associated problems such as violence, child abuse, injury, substance abuse and corruption, and the prevention of these problems through the application of the scientific method to problem analysis and the development, implementation and evaluation of interventions.

He is particularly interested in prevention projects implemented through community development methods at the local level, and is co-director of a large early intervention project in a disadvantaged area of Brisbane (the Pathways to Prevention Project). In 2004 this project, which he developed in partnership with Mission Australia, won equal first prize in the National Crime and Violence Prevention Awards.

Professor Homel was appointed as an Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia (AO) in the 2008 Australia Day Awards.