In the United States, the relationship between race and crime has been a topic of public controversy and scholarly debate for more than a century. Crime rates vary significantly between racial groups; however, academic research indicates that the over-representation of some racial minorities in the criminal justice system can in part be explained by socioeconomic factors, such as poverty, exposure to poor neighborhoods, poor access to public and early education, and exposure to harmful chemicals and pollution. Racial housing segregation has also been linked to racial disparities in crime rates, as black Americans have historically and to the present been prevented from moving into prosperous low-crime areas through actions of the government and private actors. Various explanations within criminology have been proposed for racial disparities in crime rates, including conflict theory, strain theory, general strain theory, social disorganization theory, macrostructural opportunity theory, social control theory, and subcultural theory.
Michael D. Maltz is an American electrical engineer, criminologist and Emeritus Professor at University of Illinois at Chicago in criminal justice, and adjunct professor and researcher at Ohio State University.
Alfred Blumstein is an American scientist and the J. Erik Jonsson University Professor of Urban Systems and Operations Research at the Heinz College and Department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. He is known as one of the top researchers in criminology and operations research.
Lawrence W. Sherman is an experimental criminologist and police educator who defined evidence-based policing. Since October 2024 he has served as Chief Executive Officer of Benchmark Cambridge, a global police reform organisation. From 2022-24 he was Chief Scientific Officer of the Metropolitan Police at Scotland Yard, and since 2017 he has served as the Wolfson Professor of Criminology Emeritus at the University of Cambridge Institute of Criminology.
Robert Agnew is the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Sociology at Emory University and past president of the American Society of Criminology.
Jeffrey Ian Ross is a scholar, professor, and criminologist specializing in the fields of policing, corrections, political crime, violence, street culture, graffiti and street art, and crime and justice in American Indian communities. Since 1998 Ross has been a professor at the University of Baltimore. He is a former co-chair and chair of the Division of Critical Criminology and Social Justice of the American Society of Criminology. Ross is an author, co-author, editor, and co-editor of numerous books.
David McDowall is an American criminologist and distinguished teaching professor in the School of Criminal Justice at University at Albany, SUNY, where he is also co-director of the Violence Research Group. Educated at Portland State University and Northwestern University, he taught at the University of Maryland, College Park from 1990 until joining the University at Albany in 1996. He has published a number of studies pertaining to gun violence in the United States.
Richard Rosenfeld was an American criminologist and former Curators’ Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Missouri–St. Louis.
Todd Ray Clear is an American criminologist and distinguished professor in the school of criminal justice at Rutgers University–Newark.
Janet Lynn Lauritsen is an American criminologist and the Curators' Distinguished Professor Emerita of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Missouri–St. Louis.
David Philip Farrington, was a British criminologist, forensic psychologist, and emeritus professor of psychological criminology at the University of Cambridge, where he was also a Leverhulme Trust Emeritus Fellow. In 2014, Paul Hawkins and Bitna Kim wrote that Farrington "is considered one of the leading psychologists and main contributors to the field of criminology in recent years."
Thomas G. Blomberg is an American criminologist. He is an expert in criminology research and public policy; delinquency, education and crime desistance; penology and social control; and victim services. He is currently the Dean, Sheldon L. Messinger Professor of Criminology, and the executive director of the Center for Criminology and Public Policy Research at the Florida State University College of Criminology and Criminal Justice.
Marc G. Gertz is an American criminologist and professor at the Florida State University College of Criminology and Criminal Justice. His research includes an influential 1995 survey he conducted with his Florida State University colleague, Gary Kleck, on the frequency of defensive gun use.
Nicole Leeper Piquero is an American criminologist and a professor of sociology at the University of Miami. Piquero is also the Associate Dean in the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of Miami. She was previously employed at the University of Texas at Dallas (UT-Dallas), where she was the associate provost for faculty development and program review since 2015, and has held the position of Robert E. Holmes Jr. tenured professor there since 2016. A 2013 article in the Journal of Criminal Justice Education ranked her as one of the top five female academics publishing in respected criminology and criminal justice journals.
Karuppannan Jaishankar is an Indian criminologist. He is the Founder and Principal Director and Professor of Criminology and Justice Sciences at the International Institute of Justice & Police Sciences, a non-profit academic institution and independent policy think tank in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India and an Adjunct Faculty Member of the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute, Italy & University of Peace, Italy, and he teaches modules of the Master of Laws (LL.M.) in Cybercrime, Cybersecurity and International Law.
Tomislav Victor Kovandzic is an American criminologist and professor at the University of Texas at Dallas.
John Lampert Worrall is a professor of criminology at the University of Texas at Dallas's School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences. He is known for his research on crime control, policing, and criminal courts. He is the editor-in-chief of Police Quarterly.
William Alex Pridemore is an American criminologist who is the Chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of Georgia. He is also an affiliate faculty member at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University.
Wesley Glenn Jennings is an American criminologist.
Paul Mazerolle is a Canadian criminologist and university administrator. Born in Fredericton, New Brunswick, he currently serves as the president and vice-chancellor of the University of New Brunswick, and has previously served as an administrator at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia. Mazerolle has also been an assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati's Department of Criminal Justice.
