Menu Close
Professor of Criminology, The University of Melbourne

Fiona Haines (BA (Hons), PhD) is a Professor in the School of Social and Political Sciences, Adjunct Professor Fellow at ANU and Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. She was awarded the Law and Society Association (US) International Scholar Prize in 2018. She has a BA (Hons) and PhD from the University of Melbourne. Her PhD won the 1996 Chancellor's Prize for excellence (Arts and Social Sciences). She teaches in the area of corporate and white collar crime, regulation and compliance as well as the sociology of crime and deviance.

Professor Haines research interests and published work (including The Paradox of Regulation Edward Elgar 2011, Globalization and Regulatory Character Ashgate, 2005 and Corporate Regulation: Beyond Punish or Persuade, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1997) encompasses a diverse range of corporate harms, disparate regulatory regimes and regulatory contexts: environmental harm, workplace safety, product safety (including product liability insurance), corporate collapse, industrial disasters and anti-competitive conduct. Her current work extends is in three main areas: the impact of non judicial methods to ensure ethical practice of multinational business, effective control of digitial technology and survillance consistent with a democratic society and and effective and just regulatory regime in the transition to a low carbon economy. Her work is both central to Criminological interests in corporate deviance and also inherently interdisciplinary. Her various research projects involve a number of partners including the Melbourne Energy Institute (she is a research fellow of MEI), the Centre for Public Policy and, with respect to the control of multinational business, is a member of the Australian Corporate Accountability Network (ACAN). ACAN brings together researchers and civil society to develop strategies to mimimise misconduct of mutlinational businesses. Her work coalesces around the development of ecologically responsive regulation - ensuring business regulation is consistent with the reality that we only have one planet.

Professor Haines has advised government in the area of regulation and regulatory policies. She has worked with and range of government agencies including: Department of Justice (Victoria) Civil Law Policy, Primary Industries and Resources (South Australia) (PIRSA), National Road and Transport Commission and the Victorian Taxi Directorate. As a result of her research and consultancy work, she is called on to address government and professional conferences and seminars in a wide range of areas, most recently for the Victorian Law Reform Commission and the Victorian Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission. She was a member of the Victorian Government Advisory Committee for the Equal Opportunity Act review, chaired by the former Victorian Public Advocate, Julian Gardiner in 2008 and a member of the Victorian Government Firearms Consultative Committee from 2005-2009.

Professor Haines co-edited the international journal Law & Policy with Professors Nancy Reichman (University of Denver) and Colin Scott (University College Dublin) from 2006-2012. She sits on several editorial boards including Regulation and Governance and the socio-legal studies series for Palgrave MacMillan.

Experience

  • –present
    Professor of Criminology, Melbourne University

Education

  • 1995 
    Melbourne University, PhD