Irvin Waller is an author and emeritus professor, who is a prize-winning champion of victim’s rights and violence prevention. Governments, Non-governmental organizations and intergovernmental agencies across the world – in the USA, UK, Latin America and elsewhere – seek him as a speaker and adviser.
His life work is using his knowledge across the world of different countries, the science, and logical practice to advance victims´ rights and stop street, intimate partner and sexual violence. His trail blazing work in 1985 to get the UN General Assembly to recognize rights for victims earned him multiple awards, including from the US National Organization for Victim Assistance. This led to more than 30 years working on the problems facing the world´s most crime ridden cities – particularly in advanced democracies – and so his unique ability to use science and success in one country to make advances in another.
Science and Secrets of Ending Violent Crime in 2019 is the culmination of the lessons learned from his decades of advocating for victim rights and ending violent crime. He calls attention to the still shocking number of tragedies caused by violent crime, which are so unnecessary given the easily accessible, but little used, solid science of violence prevention accumulated in the last 50 years. He shares this science in practical language along with the internationally agreed but little known conditions that are essential for governments to successfully implement that science. He uses his unique understanding of how to get buy-in so that violent crime will be reduced significantly in the next decade. He draws on the successes and disappointments from the USA and other advanced democracies to show the way to the transformations that will achieve the significant reductions in violent crime that are measurable before 2030 for the Sustainable Development Goals. The book will provide the new movements to stop gun violence and violence against women with science based and so proven ways to achieve their goals.
Science and Secrets of Ending Violent Crime builds on his recent trilogy of books. Smarter Crime Control: A guide to a safer future for citizens, communities and politicians was published in 2013. This book organizes the most recent knowledge and best practices to show how to cut street and intimate partner violence by 50% while saving billions and reducing incarceration. Rights for Victims of Crime: Rebalancing Justice in 2011 has helped enhance the police, judicial and community response to victims of violence. The book includes a model law that can easily be adapted to jurisdictions throughout the world. Less Law, More Order: The Truth about Reducing Crime influenced the implementation of effective and cost effective crime reduction policies, particularly in Latin America. Interest in the books has led to their translation and use in Spanish, Chinese and other languages.
Irvin Waller encourages both experts and savvy citizens to keep up to date and join debates on victim rights, violence prevention and collaborative policing by following him on Twitter – @IrvinWaller. He also uses LinkedIn and blogs on his website – www.irvinwaller.org.
Professor Waller has received many international awards. The US National Organization for Victim Assistance (NOVA) and the World Federation for Mental Health both recognized his pioneering work leading to the Magna Carta for victims – when the UN adopted the Declaration on Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power, which has influenced the victim movement world-wide. Waller´s unique contribution to the ¨Victim Assistance Movement¨ in the USA was recognized by his inclusion in the Oral History of the Crime Victim Assistance Field sponsored by the Office for Victims of Crime of the US Department of Justice (vroh.uakron.edu/summaries/Waller.php).
Waller has worked on national commissions in the USA, Canada and South Africa (for the Mandela government), and he has advised governments and attorneys general in more than 50 countries on how to prevent violence and respect victim rights. He developed the Safer Cities program with UN Habitat, advised on UN crime reduction guidelines and collaborates with the World Health Organization. England, Canada, Belgium, France and The Netherlands have recognized his achievements in crime prevention, particularly as the founding CEO of the International Centre for Prevention of Crime affiliated with the UN.
Professor Waller holds a Master’s degree in Economics and a Ph.D. in Law from Cambridge University. In the 1960´s, he worked as a researcher on evaluation of prisons and studies of what victims want. By the early 1970´s, he was an associate professor in the Law Faculty at the University of Toronto. In the 1970’s he was director general of research for the Canadian Solicitor General’s Department (now Public Safety Canada) and in 1982, he was appointed full professor at the University of Ottawa and became professor emeritus in 2018. He is also the immediate past President of the International Organization for Victim Assistance which is based in Portland, Oregon in the United States.
