Associate Professor Jeremy Prichard, Dr Joel Scanlan, Associate Professor Jim Sauer and colleagues have executed a research contract with the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) for $92,000. Because of the clarity of evidence produced from their previous work with Dr Caroline Spiranovic and Dr Charlotte Hunn, the AIC approached Jeremy’s team to develop a suite of online messages to help ‘nudge’ young people away from Internet-based harms.
Once produced, the messages will be stored on the AIC website and will be free for any agency, including schools, to implement on their own servers. This is terrific evidence of research impact.
It is the latest development in a 10-year research program by researchers in the Law School, the Tasmanian School of Business and Economics, and the School of Psychological Science to reduce cybercrime. Twelve publications have resulted from the research, which includes two double-blind randomised controlled experiments demonstrating the effectiveness of pop-up messages, and three national awards. These are the Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology (2021) Adam Sutton Crime Prevention Award; the Australian and New Zealand Society of Evidence Based Policing (2021) Outstanding Experiment Award; and the Journal of Sexual Aggression (2022) Most Cited Article Award 2020-2021.
The original pilot project for the research was funded by the University of Tasmania. Subsequently funding has come from the Australian Research Council, the Australian Institute of Criminology and Internet Watch Foundation. Partners include University College London and University of Canberra. Read the most recent publications here and here.
