Prof Chris Cunneen ~ Adjunct Professor

Professor Cunneen has an international reputation as a leading criminologist specialising in Indigenous people and the law, juvenile justice, restorative justice, policing, prison issues and human rights.

Chris has participated with a number of Australian Royal Commissions and Inquiries (including the Stolen Generations Inquiry, the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and the National Inquiry into Racist Violence), and with the federal Australian Human Rights Commission. He taught criminology at Sydney Law School (1990-2005) where he was appointed as Professor in 2004. He was also the Director of the Institute of Criminology (1999-2005) at the University of Sydney.

Professor Cunneen has held research positions with the Indigenous Law Centre, University of New South Wales (UNSW), and the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research. Between 2006 and 2010 he was the NewSouth Global Chair in Criminology at UNSW and continues as a Conjoint Professor at UNSW Law Faculty.

Interests

Research

• criminology
• social science and law
• Australian prisons and the growth in imprisonment
• juvenile justice
• restorative justice
• the relationship of Indigenous people to dominant legal systems both in Australia and internationally
• human rights and social justice.

Research Disciplines

• Legal systems (4805)
• Criminology (4402)
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, language and (4501)

Socio-Economic Objectives

• Justice and the law (2304)
• culture and society (1399)
• Indigenous (2199)

Memberships

• The American Society of Criminology
• The Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology
• The Indian Association for Australian Studies
• Editorial Board, The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology
• Member of the New South Wales Attorney-Generals’ Taskforce on Sexual Assault in Aboriginal Communities (2002-2006)
• Editorial Board, Youth Studies
• Editorial Board, Crime Media Culture
• Editorial Board, The Australian Indigenous Law Review
• Chairperson of the NSW Juvenile Justice Advisory Council (2000-2007)
• Editorial Board, Current Issues in Criminal Justice

These are the most recent publications associated with this author. To see a detailed profile of all publications stored at JCU, visit ResearchOnline@JCU. Hover over Altmetrics badges to see social impact.

Journal Articles

• Cunneen C, Russell S and Schwartz M (2021) Principles in diversion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people from the criminal jurisdiction. Current Issues in Criminal Justice, 33 (2). pp. 170-190
• Cunneen C (2020) Youth justice and racialization: comparative reflections. Theoretical Criminology, 24 (3). pp. 521-539
• Cunneen C (2018) Sentencing, punishment and Indigenous people in Australia. Journal of Global Indigeneity, 3 (1).
• Cunneen C, Goldson B and Russell S (2018) Human rights and youth justice reform in England and Wales: a systemic analysis. Criminology and Criminal Justice, 18 (4). pp. 405-430
• Brown D, Cunneen C and Russell S (2017) 'It's all about the Benjamins': infringement notices and young people in New South Wales. Alternative Law Journal, 42 (4). pp. 253-260

Books

• Goldson B, Cunneen C, Russell S, Brown D, Baldry E, Schwartz M and Briggs D (2020) Youth justice and penality in comparative context. Routledge, Abingdon, UK

Book Chapters

• Cunneen C (2022) Youth Justice and Children's Rights. In: Critical Perspectives on Human Rights Law in Australia. Thomson Reuters, Sydney, NSW, Australia, pp. 174-194
• Bargallie D, Cunneen C, Marchetti E, Tauri J and Williams M (2020) Developing ethical standards in criminology and criminal justice research: a focus on Indigenous Australian peoples. In: Indigenous Research Ethics: claiming research sovereignty beyond deficit and the colonial legacy. Advances in Research Ethics and Integrity, 6. Emerald, Bingley, UK, pp. 41-52
• Cunneen C and Russell S (2020) Vilification, vigilantism and violence: troubling social media in Australia. In: Law, Lawyers and Justice: through Australian lenses. Routledge, Abingdon, UK, pp. 82-105
• Cunneen C (2018) Indigenous people, resistance and racialised criminality. In: Media, Crime and Racism. Palgrave Studies in Crime, Media and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, Switzerland, pp. 277-299
• Cunneen C (2018) Indigenous challenges for southern criminology. In: The Palgrave Handbook of Criminology and the Global South. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, Switzerland, pp. 19-41
• Allison F, Cunneen C and Schwartz M (2017) The civil and family law needs of Indigenous people 40 years after Sackville: findings of the Indigenous Legal Needs Project. In: Law and Poverty in Australia: 40 years after the Poverty Commission. Federation Press, Annandale, NSW, Australia, pp. 231-248

More

ResearchOnline@JCU stores 112+ research outputs authored by Prof Chris Cunneen from 2006 onwards.

Advisory Accreditation: I can be on your Advisory Panel as a Primary or Secondary Advisor.

These Higher Degree Research projects are either current or by students who have completed their studies within the past 5 years at JCU. Linked titles show theses available within ResearchOnline@JCU.

Completed

• Analysing the justice needs of Rwandan female victim-survivors of conflict-related sexual violence and their experiences with the gacaca courts (2021, PhD , Primary Advisor/AM/Adv)
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and consumer law (2018, PhD , Primary Advisor)
• Cause for hope or despair? Evaluating race discrimination law as an access to justice mechanism for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (2019, PhD , Primary Advisor/AM/Adv)

These are the most recent metadata records associated with this researcher. To see a detailed description of all dataset records, visit Research Data Australia.

• Rafferty, J. (2017) Needs and experiences of Rwandan women who raised a case at a gacaca court about sexual violence committed against them during the genocide in Rwanda. James Cook University

The map shows research collaborations by institution from the past 7 years.
Note: Map points are indicative of the countries or states that institutions are associated with.