We have great pleasure in announcing that the Security Journal is commemorating its 20th volume. It was all started by the ASIS Foundation who were keen to develop a scholarly reference point for the security sector. The Foundation still remain committed to the journal to this day, and indeed, three members of the first Board, Jim Calder, Ira Somerson and Bob McCrie are still members. Jim Calder claims a unique record, he has attended every one of the annual editorial Board meetings.
Bob McCrie was the founding and also the first editor and did the job for a decade. Looking back at the first volume in 1989 highlights how many of the issues remain the same. In that inaugural issue, the topics covered included private/public stereotypes, violent stranger crime and environmental design. In the ensuing years, there were to be a variety of special issues including two relating to crime prevention in the Netherlands. The journal soon became the scholarly reference point for the security sector.
The year 1999 became a watershed year in the life of the journal as it changed publishers (from Butterworth–Heinemann to Perpetuity Press) and we took over as editors. The decision to introduce two editors, one for North America, I cover Canada and USA (Bonnie) and one for the rest of the world (Martin) was the strategic aiming to provide a more global view of the security field. A new Board was introduced – retaining some old faces but at the same time it reflected the growing international dimension of the study of security – and the journal was given a fresh new look.
We continued the commitment to special issues and the involvement of guest editors (e.g. on expert witnesses), and we saw a range of security topics covered from authors across the world on different crime types, different security technologies and on different ways of managing threats. We continued to attract the attention of major authors including those most associated with other disciplines.
Then again in 2006, there was another change in the journal. Ownership passed from Perpetuity Press to Palgrave MacMillan with another new updated image and a revised Board, but once again retaining the involvement of the many who have helped develop the journal over the years. Indeed, in addition to the editors and the Board, others including the assistant editors, and especially the book review editors, the guest editors of special issues, the paper reviewers (on specialist subjects it is often necessary to go beyond the Board members), and the publishers' staff, over the years, have all played a crucial part in developing the journal into a high-quality publication.
We are always grateful to authors who, with a choice of journals, choose this publication. In addition to those whose papers you see in print, are many which we reject. Each paper is blind refereed by two independent experts, and sometimes their view is that a good topic or a good idea falls short of publication standard. This is of course what makes the journal what it is.
Given these developments and to commemorate their collective efforts, we decided to organize a special 20th anniversary edition. We contacted a range of security experts, many of whom have been associated with the journal over the last two decades, to write an essay to commemorate this landmark. We were happy for them to explore whatever aspect of the study of security they wished and present their argument as they felt appropriate while considering three pertinent questions:
- What is the most important thing we have learned in the last 20 years of study and practice of security?
- What are the most important trends or innovations that are influencing, have influenced, or will influence the future of the study and practice of security?
- If you were setting the research agenda for the next ten years, what would be your priority and why?
As you will read in the essays in this issue, each contributor responded to these questions in creative and thought-provoking ways. All the papers offer their own innovative insights on the last 20 years of security research and practice and move on to consider a vision of the future. The essays represent the personal viewpoints of some of the leading contributors to the body of knowledge of our time. They offer a constructively critical viewpoint of not just where we have been, but on where we ought to be heading. There is much in what they say that warns of the need to heed the mistakes of the past to provide a different research agenda for the future.
It is our commitment as editors to continue publishing quality security research that reflects the ever-changing security world (including cyberspace) and to continue to push the boundaries of the growing body of security knowledge. We hope that the essays will generate some ideas that can inform articles that will appear in forthcoming issues of the Security Journal.
