Professor Robert Reiner
Emeritus Professor of Criminology, London School of Economics
I became a BSC member in the 1980s, and regularly attended the seminars in Mary Ward House. I became a Committee Member and Treasurer, of the BSC in 1988. I Chaired the Southern Branch from 1989-93. For several years Tim Newburn and I organised the London seminars together in various capacities. I was hugely honoured to be the President of the BSC from 1993-6. My successor Professor Philip Bean made me a Lifetime Member, for which I am very grateful. In 2011 I was immensely privileged to receive the BSC Outstanding Achievement Award.
In the last ten years I have worked in three main areas: policing; media and popular culture; political economy of crime and criminal justice. I have written papers in all three areas, many of which are included in a collection ‘Policing, Popular Culture and Political Economy: Towards a Social Democratic Criminology’ (Ashgate, 2011) that also contains an introduction setting out the rationale for my various writings in the context of the changing political, economic, social and cultural landscape they have addressed, as well as my more personal biography. My main recent contribution in the policing field has been the 4th edition of ‘The Politics of the Police’ (Oxford University Press 2010), and a number of articles in the area. I have written two recent books on the political economy of crime and criminal justice: ‘Law and Order: An Honest Citizen’s Guide to Crime and Control’ (Polity, 2007); ‘Crime: The Mystery of the Common Sense Concept’ (Polity, 2016), and am working on a book on social democratic criminology for the Routledge Critical Criminology series. I have also published several papers on these themes in journals and edited volumes.