The Most Influential People in History
Find the most important people in 24 academic disciplines from 4000 BCE to today
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our proprietary AI program, we have ranked everyone in Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef based on the number of citations, publications, and academically relevant web presence.
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List of the most influential people in Criminal Justice, for the years 1200 – 2020
Cesare Lombroso
#1196
Overall Influence
1835 - 1909 (74 years)
Cesare Lombroso was an Italian criminologist, phrenologist, physician, and founder of the Italian School of Positivist Criminology. Lombroso rejected the established classical school, which held that crime was a characteristic trait of human nature. Instead, using concepts drawn from physiognomy, degeneration theory, psychiatry, and Social Darwinism, Lombroso's theory of anthropological criminology essentially stated that criminality was inherited, and that someone "born criminal" could be identified by physical defects, which confirmed a criminal as savage or atavistic.
Go to ProfileJock Young
#5318
Overall Influence
1942 - 2013 (71 years)
Jock Young was a British sociologist and an influential criminologist. Biography Jock Young was educated at the London School of Economics. His PhD was an ethnography of drug use in Notting Hill, West London, out of which he developed the concept of moral panic. The research was published as The Drugtakers. He was a founding member of the National Deviancy Conferences and a group of critical criminologists in which milieu he wrote the groundbreaking, The New Criminology: For a Social Theory of Deviance in 1973, with Ian Taylor and Paul Walton and The Manufacture of News .
Go to ProfileEliot Ness
#3686
Overall Influence
1903 - 1957 (54 years)
Eliot Ness was an American Prohibition agent known for his efforts to bring down Al Capone and enforce Prohibition in Chicago. He was the leader of a team of law enforcement agents, nicknamed The Untouchables. His co-authorship of an autobiography, The Untouchables, which was released shortly after his death, launched several television and motion picture portrayals establishing Ness's posthumous fame as an incorruptible crime fighter.
Go to ProfileGeorge L. Kelling
#5754
Overall Influence
1935 - 2019 (84 years)
George Lee Kelling was an American criminologist, a professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University–Newark, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, and a fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He previously taught at Northeastern University.
Go to ProfileTravis Hirschi
#2914
Overall Influence
1935 - 2017 (82 years)
Travis Warner Hirschi was an American sociologist and an emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Arizona. He helped to develop the modern version of the social control theory of crime and later the self-control theory of crime.
Go to ProfileEdwin Sutherland
#3972
Overall Influence
1883 - 1950 (67 years)
Edwin Hardin Sutherland was an American sociologist. He is considered one of the most influential criminologists of the 20th century. He was a sociologist of the symbolic interactionist school of thought and is best known for defining white-collar crime and differential association, a general theory of crime and delinquency. Sutherland earned his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago in 1913. In 1939 Edwin was the first who introduced White Collar Crime.
Go to ProfileJames Q. Wilson
#1872
Overall Influence
1931 - 2012 (81 years)
James Quinn Wilson was an American political scientist and an authority on public administration. Most of his career was spent as a professor at UCLA and Harvard University. He was the chairman of the Council of Academic Advisors of the American Enterprise Institute, member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board , and the President's Council on Bioethics. He was Director of Joint Center for Urban Studies at Harvard-MIT.
Go to ProfileEdmond Locard
#10694
Overall Influence
1877 - 1966 (89 years)
Dr. Edmond Locard was a French criminologist, the pioneer in forensic science who became known as the "Sherlock Holmes of France". He formulated the basic principle of forensic science: "Every contact leaves a trace". This became known as Locard's exchange principle.
Go to ProfileRobert D. Keppel
#6738
Overall Influence
1944 - 2021 (77 years)
Robert David Keppel was an American law enforcement officer and detective. He was also an associate professor at the University of New Haven and Sam Houston State University. Keppel was known for his contributions to the investigations of Ted Bundy and Gary Ridgway, and also assisted in the creation of HITS, the Homicide Investigation Tracking System.
Go to ProfileRobert Ressler
#7768
Overall Influence
1937 - 2013 (76 years)
Robert Kenneth Ressler was an FBI agent and author. He played a significant role in the psychological profiling of violent offenders in the 1970s and is often credited with coining the term "serial killer", though the term is a direct translation of the German term "Serienmörder" coined in 1930 by Berlin investigator Ernst Gennat. After retiring from the FBI, he authored a number of books on serial murders, and often gave lectures on criminology.
Go to ProfileCesare Beccaria
#3843
Overall Influence
1738 - 1794 (56 years)
Cesare Bonesana di Beccaria, Marquis of Gualdrasco and Villareggio was an Italian criminologist, jurist, philosopher, economist and politician, who is widely considered one of the greatest thinkers of the Age of Enlightenment. He is well remembered for his treatise On Crimes and Punishments , which condemned torture and the death penalty, and was a founding work in the field of penology and the Classical School of criminology. Beccaria is considered the father of modern criminal law and the father of criminal justice.
Go to ProfileErnest Burgess
#2670
Overall Influence
1886 - 1966 (80 years)
Ernest Watson Burgess was a Canadian-American urban sociologist born in Tilbury, Ontario. He was educated at Kingfisher College in Oklahoma and continued graduate studies in sociology at the University of Chicago. In 1916, he returned to the University of Chicago, as a faculty member. Burgess was hired as an urban sociologist at the University of Chicago. Burgess also served as the 24th President of the American Sociological Association .
Go to ProfileHans Gross
#6399
Overall Influence
1847 - 1915 (68 years)
Hans Gustav Adolf Gross or Groß was an Austrian criminal jurist and criminologist, the "Founding Father" of criminal profiling. A criminal jurist, Gross made a mark as the creator of the field of criminality. Throughout his life, Hans Gross made significant contributions to the realm of scientific criminology. As Gross developed in his career as an examining justice, he noticed the failings of the field of law. His book, classes, institutions, and methods helped improve the justice system through his experience as a justice.
Go to ProfileFreda Adler
#17393
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (89 years)
Freda Adler is a criminologist and educator, currently serving as Professor Emeritus at Rutgers University and a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania. She was President of the American Society of Criminology in 1994-1995. She has acted as a consultant to the United Nations on criminal justice matters since 1975, holding various roles within United Nations organizations. A prolific writer, Adler has published in a variety of criminological areas, including female criminality, international issues in crime, piracy, drug abuse, and social control theories.
Go to ProfileAdolphe Quetelet
#1489
Overall Influence
1796 - 1874 (78 years)
Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet FRSF or FRSE was a Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist who founded and directed the Brussels Observatory and was influential in introducing statistical methods to the social sciences. His name is sometimes spelled with an accent as Quételet.
Go to ProfileAlphonse Bertillon
#4883
Overall Influence
1853 - 1914 (61 years)
Alphonse Bertillon was a French police officer and biometrics researcher who applied the anthropological technique of anthropometry to law enforcement creating an identification system based on physical measurements. Anthropometry was the first scientific system used by police to identify criminals. Before that time, criminals could only be identified by name or photograph. The method was eventually supplanted by fingerprinting.
Go to ProfilePaul L. Kirk
#16649
Overall Influence
1902 - 1970 (68 years)
Paul Leland Kirk was a biochemist, criminalist and participant in the Manhattan Project who was specialized in microscopy. He also investigated the bedroom in which Sam Sheppard supposedly murdered his wife and provided the key blood spatter evidence that led to his acquittal in a retrial over 12 years after the murder. The highest honor one can receive in the criminalistics section of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences carries Kirk's name.
Go to ProfileArchibald Reiss
#18930
Overall Influence
1875 - 1929 (54 years)
Rodolphe Archibald Reiss was a German–Swiss criminology-pioneer, forensic scientist, professor and writer. Early life and studies The Reiss family was in agriculture and winemaking. Archibald was the eighth of ten children, son of Ferdinand Reiss, landowner and Pauline Sabine Anna Gabriele Seutter von Loetzen. After finishing highschool in Germany, he went to Switzerland for his studies. He had received a Ph.D. in chemistry at the age of 22 and was an expert in photography and forensic science. In 1906 he was appointed a professor of forensic science at the University of Lausanne. In 1909, he...
Go to ProfileAlbert K. Cohen
#12128
Overall Influence
1918 - 2014 (96 years)
Albert K. Cohen was a prominent American criminologist. He is known for his Subcultural Theory of delinquent urban gangs, including his influential book Delinquent Boys: Culture of the Gang. He has served as Vice President of the American Society of Criminology from 1984–1985 and in 1993 he received the society's Edwin H. Sutherland award.
Go to ProfileAlexandre Lacassagne
#6653
Overall Influence
1843 - 1924 (81 years)
Alexandre Lacassagne was a French physician and criminologist who was a native of Cahors. He was the founder of the Lacassagne school of criminology, based in Lyon and influential from 1885 to 1914, and the main rival to Lombroso's Italian school.
Go to ProfileLawrence W. Sherman
#16118
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (74 years)
Lawrence W. Sherman was born in 1949 in Schenectady, New York. He graduated from Denison University with a B.A. in political science, before earning his M.A. in social science from the University of Chicago. He went on to earn his diploma in criminology from the University of Cambridge and his M.A. and Ph.D in sociology from Yale University. Sherman has conducted extensive research into restorative justice, experimental criminology, and crime prevention. His work has been pivotal in stimulating a professional social movement among police officers across the world and in demonstrating how social science can be instrumental at the core of badly needed police reforms.
Go to ProfileRobert E. Park
#2474
Overall Influence
1864 - 1944 (80 years)
Robert Ezra Park was an American urban sociologist who is considered to be one of the most influential figures in early U.S. sociology. Park was a pioneer in the field of sociology, changing it from a passive philosophical discipline to an active discipline rooted in the study of human behavior. He made significant contributions to the study of urban communities, race relations and the development of empirically grounded research methods, most notably participant observation in the field of criminology. From 1905 to 1914, Park worked with Booker T. Washington at the Tuskegee Institute. After...
Go to ProfileThorsten Sellin
#13290
Overall Influence
1896 - 1994 (98 years)
Johan Thorsten Sellin was a Swedish American sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania, a penologist and one of the pioneers of scientific criminology. Biography Sellin was born in Örnsköldsvik in Västernorrland County, Sweden and came to Canada with his parents when he was 17 years old. He received his bachelor's degree from Augustana College in Illinois when he was 19. He went on to receive a master's degree and doctoral degree in sociology from the University of Pennsylvania. He taught at the University of Pennsylvania from 1922 until becoming Professor Emeritus in 1967.
Go to ProfileJohn E. Douglas
#3905
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (78 years)
John Edward Douglas is an American retired special agent and unit chief in the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation . He was one of the first criminal profilers and has written books on criminal psychology.
Go to ProfileJuan Vucetich
#19074
Overall Influence
1858 - 1925 (67 years)
Juan Vucetich Kovacevich was a Croatian-Argentine anthropologist and police official who pioneered the use of dactyloscopy . Biography Vucetich was born in Hvar, Dalmatia, then part of the Austrian Empire, and immigrated to Argentina in 1882.
Go to ProfileDavid Matza
#16509
Overall Influence
1930 - 2018 (88 years)
David Matza was an American sociologist who taught at University of California, Berkeley from 1961. Life and Work Born in New York, he received his PhD from Princeton University in 1959. His research fields included deviant behavior, social change, poverty and working class life. He is best known for coauthoring, with Gresham Sykes, techniques of neutralization.
Go to ProfileMichael R. Gottfredson
#9776
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (72 years)
Michael Ryan Gottfredson is the former President of the University of Oregon, serving from August 1, 2012 to August 6, 2014. Biography He has a B.A from the University of California, Davis, a M.A. and a Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Albany.
Go to ProfileWalter Reckless
#15465
Overall Influence
1898 - 1988 (90 years)
Walter Reckless was an American criminologist known for his containment theory . Biography Reckless earned his PhD in sociology from the University of Chicago. While at the Chicago School , he joined with sociologists Robert Park and Ernest Burgess in conducting observation studies of crime in Chicago, Illinois. This research led to his dissertation, The Natural History of Vice Areas in Chicago , which was published as "Vice in Chicago" - a landmark sociological study of fraud, prostitution, and organized crime in the city's "vice" districts.
Go to ProfileLouk Hulsman
#19586
Overall Influence
1923 - 2009 (86 years)
Lodewijk Henri Christian Hulsman, known as Louk Hulsman was a Dutch legal scientist and criminologist. Life According to Hulsman, his childhood and adolescence were marked by the time he spent in a religious boarding school that left him traumatized. After graduating from school Hulsman was involved in a resistance movement during World War II. In 1944 he was convicted of using counterfeit identification papers and imprisoned at the Amersfoort concentration camp. While being transferred to Germany he successfully escaped. After returning to the Netherlands he joined the Allied troops as a soldier during the last weeks of the Second World War.
Go to ProfileGary Kleck
#10995
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (72 years)
Gary Kleck is a criminologist and the David J. Bordua Professor Emeritus of Criminology at Florida State University. Early life and education Kleck was born in Lombard, Illinois, to William and Joyce Kleck. He attended Glenbard East High School before enrolling in the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he received his BA , MA , and PhD , all in Sociology.
Go to ProfileEugene Trivizas
#16772
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (77 years)
Eugene Trivizas is a Greek sociologist and writer of children's books. For his lasting contribution as a children's writer, Trivizas was a finalist for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2006.
Go to ProfileEnrico Ferri
#12949
Overall Influence
1856 - 1929 (73 years)
Enrico Ferri was an Italian criminologist, socialist and student of Cesare Lombroso , the founder of the Italian school of criminology. While Lombroso researched the purported physiological factors that motivated criminals, Ferri investigated social and economic aspects. He served as editor of the socialist daily Avanti! and, in 1884, saw his book Criminal Sociology published. Later, his work served as the basis for Argentina’s penal code of 1921. Although at first he rejected the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, Ferri later became one of Mussolini and his National Fascist Party's main exte...
Go to ProfileStanley Cohen
#11431
Overall Influence
1942 - 2013 (71 years)
Stanley Cohen was a sociologist and criminologist, Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics, known for breaking academic ground on "emotional management", including the mismanagement of emotions in the form of sentimentality, overreaction, and emotional denial. He had a lifelong concern with human rights violations, first growing up in South Africa, later studying imprisonment in England and finally in Palestine. He founded the Centre for the Study of Human Rights at the London School of Economics.
Go to ProfileO. W. Wilson
#42529
Overall Influence
1900 - 1972 (72 years)
Orlando Winfield Wilson , also known as O. W. Wilson, was an American police officer, later becoming a leader in policing along with authoring several books on policing. Wilson served as Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department, chief of police in Fullerton, California and Wichita, Kansas.
Go to ProfileJerzy Sarnecki
#27703
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (76 years)
Jerzy Sarnecki is a professor of criminology at Stockholm University. He studied geodesy as an undergraduate before earning a Ph.D. in sociology from Stockholm University. During his schooling, he worked at youth recreation centres, which led to his later work as a researcher of juvenile delinquency for the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention. He served as Division Head at the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention until he became a professor of criminology at Stockholm University. He has intermittently served as head of the Department of Criminology at Stockholm University, ...
Go to ProfileAlfred Blumstein
#13291
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (93 years)
Alfred Blumstein was born in 1930 in New York. He earned his bachelor’s degree and Ph.D from Cornell University. Blumstein’s research has explored multiple aspects of criminal justice, such as career criminality, criminal justice policy, juvenile violence, deterrence, and populations within the prison system. He has published multiple works that continue to inform criminal justice theory, including his 2007 work, Key Issues in Criminal Career Research: New Analyses of the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development, which he wrote with colleagues, Alex Piquero and David P. Farrington. His work has been honored by numerous criminal justice organizations.
Go to ProfileJames Alan Fox
#16277
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (72 years)
James Alan Fox is the Lipman Family Professor of Criminology, Law, and Public Policy and former dean at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States. Fox holds a bachelor's degree in sociology , a master's degree in criminology , a master's degree in statistics , and a Ph.D. in sociology , all from the University of Pennsylvania.
Go to ProfileWilliam Chambliss
#20564
Overall Influence
1933 - 2014 (81 years)
William Joseph Chambliss was an American criminologist and sociologist. He was a professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice at The George Washington University for over 20 years. He was a pioneer of the conflict theory which concluded, among other things, that conflict between different social classes is the fundamental force in capitalist societies. In addition to his transformative scholarly contributions, he was a teacher-scholar and mentor to many of today’s leading criminologists and sociologists.
Go to ProfileRaffaele Garofalo
#28245
Overall Influence
1851 - 1934 (83 years)
Raffaele Garofalo was an Italian criminologist and jurist. Criminology theories He was a student of Cesare Lombroso, often regarded as the father of criminology. He rejected the doctrine of free will and supported the position that crime can be understood only if it is studied by scientific methods. He attempted to formulate a sociological definition of crime that would designate those acts which can be repressed by punishment. These constituted "Natural Crime" and were considered offenses violating the two basic altruistic sentiments common to all people, namely, probity and piety. Crime is an immoral act that is injurious to society.
Go to ProfileNils Christie
#14509
Overall Influence
1928 - 2015 (87 years)
Nils Christie was a Norwegian sociologist and criminologist. He was a professor of criminology at the Faculty of Law, University of Oslo. Personal life Christie was born in Oslo on 24 February 1928, a son of Ragnvald Christie and Ruth Hellum. He married Vigdis Margit Moe in 1951, and was later married to .
Go to ProfileDayle Hinman
#54488
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (71 years)
Dayle Hinman is a retired, FBI-trained criminal profiler. She starred in a television series on TruTV . The program, Body of Evidence: From the case files of Dayle Hinman, documented some of the cases she worked while a Special Agent at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement , as well as some other cases. "Body of Evidence" , was a documentary-style show with interviews, re-enactments and an off-camera narrator. Each episode included scenes of Hinman discussing the case in question, as well as scenes of her playing herself in re-enactments.
Go to ProfileLonnie Athens
#27382
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (74 years)
Lonnie Athens was born in Richmond, Virginia. He earned a B.S. from Virginia Tech, an M.S. from University of Wisconsin at Madison, and a D.Crim from the University of California at Berkeley. Athens is best known for his Theory of Violentization, which consists of Four Stages. The stages, Brutalization, Belligerancy, Violent Performances, and Virulency, are a continuum on which violent behavior develops over time. he has written several books about violence, including The Creation of Dangerous Violent Criminals and Violent Criminal Acts and Actors: A Symbolic Interactionist Study. He was the w...
Go to ProfileGary Becker
#405
Overall Influence
1930 - 2014 (84 years)
Gary Stanley Becker was an American economist who received the 1992 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He was a professor of economics and sociology at the University of Chicago, and was a leader of the third generation of the Chicago school of economics.
Go to ProfileArturo Bocchini
#17733
Overall Influence
1880 - 1940 (60 years)
Arturo Bocchini was an Italian civil servant, who was appointed Chief of the Police under the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini. Bocchini held the office from September 1926 until his death in November 1940, becoming a key figure in the Italian regime.
Go to ProfileJoseph L. Gormley
#32340
Overall Influence
1914 - 2004 (90 years)
Joseph Leo Gormley was the chief of chemistry and toxicology for the FBI. Born in Clinton, Massachusetts, he was raised in Somerville, Massachusetts. Gormley received his bachelor's and master's degrees in chemistry from Boston College. With his wife Frances he fathered and raised nine children.
Go to ProfileGabriel Tarde
#2878
Overall Influence
1843 - 1904 (61 years)
Gabriel Tarde was a French sociologist, criminologist and social psychologist who conceived sociology as based on small psychological interactions among individuals , the fundamental forces being imitation and innovation.
Go to ProfileShaun L. Gabbidon
#29213
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (56 years)
Shaun L. Gabbidon was born in England. He earned a Ph.D in Criminology from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. His first book, The Criminological Writings of W.E.B. DuBois: A Historical Analysis, provided important insights into W.E.B. DuBois’ research regarding crime in the United States - as it pertained to the experience of African Americans - and how DuBois foreshadowed later research findings in the area of criminology. He is also known for his book, Criminological Perspectives on Race and Crime, in which he critically examines and evaluates the theories of criminologists such as Biko Agozino and J.
Go to ProfileMalcolm W. Klein
#36131
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (93 years)
Malcolm Klein is a criminologist, researcher, theorist, retired professor of Sociology at the University of Southern California, and the author of his book The American Street Gang. In addition, he continued to publish eighteen other books and more than fifty articles that are based on his research on gangs.
Go to ProfileFrances Glessner Lee
#46729
Overall Influence
1878 - 1962 (84 years)
Frances Glessner Lee was an American forensic scientist. She was influential in developing the science of forensics in the United States. To this end, she created the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, 20 true crime scene dioramas recreated in minute detail at dollhouse scale, used for training homicide investigators. Eighteen of the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death are still in use for teaching purposes by the Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, and the dioramas are also now considered works of art. Glessner Lee also helped to establish the Department of Legal Medicine at Harvard, and endowed the Magrath Library of Legal Medicine there.
Go to ProfileRichard Rosenfeld
#35885
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (75 years)
Richard Rosenfeld was born in 1948. He earned his B.A. and his Ph.D in sociology from the University of Oregon. He has been honored by his colleagues on several occasions. He was selected as a Fulbright Scholar in 2016 and received the Edwin H. Sutherland Award from the American Society of Criminology in 2017. Rosenfeld’s research has concentrated on crime control, criminal justice policy, the social sources of crime and the statistical trends of criminal justice in the United States. He has examined violent crime in St.Louis, finding geographic areas with higher concentrations of violent crime, and evaluating the correlations between these areas and socioeconomic conditions.
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