Interviews

New Institute chair

by Mark Rowe

At the Security Institute, Dr Alison Wakefield will become its new chairman from January 2018. She’s taking over from Garry Evanson.

Alison Wakefield has been a finalist in the Professional Security ‘Women in Security’ awards in 2015 and 2016, and was awarded the annual Lord Imbert Prize for contributions to the sector, by the Association of Security Consultants last month. She’s pictured right receiving the award, as nominated by the Institute, from ASC chair Joe Connell.

She holds a B.A. (Hull) and M.Phil Ph.D (Cambridge) and is also a Fellow of the Security Institute; she’s Senior Lecturer in Security Risk Management at the University of Portsmouth, where she is course leader of the BSc Risk and Security Management and the Professional Doctorate in Security Risk Management. Her first book, Selling Security: The Private Policing of Public Space (Willan Publishing, 2003), shortlisted for the British Society of Criminology Book Prize 2003, was one of the few academic or other books to take seriously and look at what ground-level security officers actually say and do. Likewise she is one of the relatively few academic criminologists to specialise in private security, such as enterprise risk management. Before her post on the south coast, she had an academic post on another coast; in Sydney.

She is editor of The Sage Dictionary of Policing with Jenny Fleming (Sage, 2009) and Ethical and Social Perspectives on Situational Crime Prevention with Andrew von Hirsch and David Garland (Hart Publishing, 2000). For her academic background in full visit the Portsmouth University website.

She has served as Vice Chairman of the Security Institute since 2015, and as a board director since 2010. Previously she was a Director with the International Institute of Security from 2004 before its merger with the Security Institute in 2008. She chaired the Institute’s Academic Board at the point of the launch of its qualifications in 2010 and the Knowledge Centre in 2013.

In 2010-11 Alison chaired the Institute working party that devised the pathways to becoming a Chartered Security Professional, and she now serves as Academic Adviser to the Chartered Security Professionals Registration Authority.

Alison serves on the editorial boards of Security Journal and the Journal of Criminological Research, Policy and Practice, and on the international advisory board of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology. Alison was also Executive Secretary of the British Society of Criminology from 2004 to 2008.

She said: “I am extremely honoured to be appointed Chairman of the Security Institute, the UK’s largest association of security practitioners and increasingly the pre-eminent voice of the security profession. Today’s uncertain political and economic landscape presents significant challenges, but also great opportunities as people and organisations look to our profession to help them manage uncertainty. We will continue to champion and support the professional development of our members, promote awareness of the important role that is played by the security sector, and seek to consolidate the Institute’s standing in the security community, industry and government.”

Garry Evanson, head of security and emergency planning at Westminster Abbey, said: “I am delighted that Alison will in January take the reins of Chairman and continue to shape the Security Institute as the leading security membership body at a time when the challenges in the security landscape are at their greatest for many years. She is a professional of the highest order and her collegial approach will ensure that the Institute goes from strength to strength. She has proven herself in many and varied arenas not least as Institute Vice Chairman and I congratulate her on her election and wish her and the Institute well for the future!”

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