He has written extensively on criminal justice issues. He previously held positions at the Australian National University (ANU), the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) and the Law Council of Australia, and is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the ANU College of Law and at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. Dr Urbas is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Tilburg Institute for Law, Society and Technology (TILT) at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. He wrote the Australian country analysis for the Sweetie 2.0 Report published by Terre des Hommes in October 2016.