EDWIN SUTHERLANDOf course any list must have this guy on it, the father of American criminology. Sutherland is also the father of Differential Association theory (which is a predecessor theory to Social Learning theory). His work developed out of the "Chicago School" of sociological criminology. It is well-known that he saw sociology as the proper parent discipline for criminology. I disagree with his position on this. Most interesting to me personally was his debate of ideas with Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck. While I tend to side with the Glueck's position in the Sutherland/Glueck debate, I certainly recognize the great contribution of Sutherland to the discipline. His is one of the first names that any freshman criminology student learns. He is also memorialized by the American Society of Criminology's coveted Sutherland Award.
ADOLPH QUETELET 
This 19th century Belgian astronomer/mathematician might be unrecognized by some. But surely all criminologists have heard of the well-established age-crime curve. Quetelet was the first to point to the age-crime curve. He was a positivist criminologist who gathered/analyzed a host of social statistics from which he made many observations about apparent correlates of crime, some of which we take for granted today. Some of the correlates of crime he observed were age, gender, climate, poverty, education, and substance abuse patterns. Given the degree of debate that has been generated in the field by those seeking to understand the age-crime curve, I have to include Quetelet on my list. He was ahead of his time (wouldn't it be great to have Quetelet still around and hear him weigh in on the Blumstein vs. Gottfredson/Hirschi age-crime curve debate).
This 19th century Belgian astronomer/mathematician might be unrecognized by some. But surely all criminologists have heard of the well-established age-crime curve. Quetelet was the first to point to the age-crime curve. He was a positivist criminologist who gathered/analyzed a host of social statistics from which he made many observations about apparent correlates of crime, some of which we take for granted today. Some of the correlates of crime he observed were age, gender, climate, poverty, education, and substance abuse patterns. Given the degree of debate that has been generated in the field by those seeking to understand the age-crime curve, I have to include Quetelet on my list. He was ahead of his time (wouldn't it be great to have Quetelet still around and hear him weigh in on the Blumstein vs. Gottfredson/Hirschi age-crime curve debate).
CESARE BECCARIAThis Italian criminologist is the father of the Classical School of criminology. I consider myself a classical criminologist, so I like this guy. His important work to the field is his treatise entitled "On Crimes and Punishment" (1764). He believed that motivation for criminal behavior was constant. He mostly focused on the utility of punishment, saying that it needed to be proportionate to the crime. He was influential to Jeremy Bentham and the later Utilitarian view of punishment- that punishment needs to be certain, severe, and swift in order to be effective. Modern day deterrence theory is also an extension of Becarria's work.
CESARE LOMBROSO
While the other "Cesare" is often considered the father of the Classical School of criminology, this "Cesare" is often considered the father of the Positivist School of criminology. He was a biological positivist who is famous for his idea of
the "born criminal". From his study of human heads, he developed what he called the atavistic criminal type, which he associated with facial features such as large jaws, a low-sloping forehead, and high cheekbones. His ideas have largely been disproven today but his postivistic approach to the study of crime continues. I think that many in the field feared (probably rightly so) the implications of his work, and have thus largely abandoned biological contributions to criminology over the last century or so. I see this changing though, as we now recognize that there is an interaction effect between biological factors such as genetics and social environment. I'm a big fan of seeing a return to biological criminology. I also like that Northeastern University's resident historian of criminology, Nicole Rafter, recently translated Lombroso's "Criminal Man" from Italian to English.
the "born criminal". From his study of human heads, he developed what he called the atavistic criminal type, which he associated with facial features such as large jaws, a low-sloping forehead, and high cheekbones. His ideas have largely been disproven today but his postivistic approach to the study of crime continues. I think that many in the field feared (probably rightly so) the implications of his work, and have thus largely abandoned biological contributions to criminology over the last century or so. I see this changing though, as we now recognize that there is an interaction effect between biological factors such as genetics and social environment. I'm a big fan of seeing a return to biological criminology. I also like that Northeastern University's resident historian of criminology, Nicole Rafter, recently translated Lombroso's "Criminal Man" from Italian to English.
ALFRED BLUMSTEINWhat can I say? Al Blumstein is simply genius. Oh yeah, in the interest of full disclosure, I had the extreme honor of studying under him and working with him as his research assistant for two years at Carnegie Mellon. Most would consider Al to be on their short list of the greatest modern American criminologists, even though Al's formal training was in Engineering and Operations Research. His influence has been felt across many areas of the discipline, from theory to policy to quantitative methods. His vigorous debate with Hirschi/Gottfredson during the mid 1980s over the meaning of the age-crime curve is labeled by some as the "great debate" in criminology. He is the father of the "criminal career" paradigm, which helped paved the way for much of the longitudinal research that is popular in criminology today. He's done important analysis of U.S. crime trends and of the American crime drop during the mid to late 1990s. He's also done important analysis of U.S. incarceration trends, including some ongoing work that I was involved in on disaggregating the racial disproportionality in incarceration rates. In my current work, I've benefited from his work on prison population projections modeling. He's won just about every prestigious award in the discipline. He's been so effective in bridging the gap between research, policy and politics. He's been so effective as a teacher/mentor that his students and his students' students are now big names in the discipline (think Nagin, Bushway, Dugan, Pogarsky, among others).
TRAVIS HIRSCHI
Hirschi is my absolute favorite criminologist. His theoretical work is unparalleled in my opinion. He's a criminologist in the truest sense of the word, so much so that there's an entire book dedicated to his career entitled "The Craft of Criminology". He is another one who's wo
n about every prestigious award out there in the discipline. His two best known works, "Causes of Delinquency" and "A General Theory of Crime", are consistently at the top of lists of most significant books in the field. He holds a unique position in criminology in that he is a pioneer of two prominent theories over the course of his career- Social Control (or Social Bonding) theory, and Self-Control theory. The link between the two is that he is a control theorist, which I also consider myself to be. I go back and forth as to whether I like his formulation of social control or self-control better. Both have had an enormous impact on my thinking. Hirschi is also my intellectual "grand-father", in that he was the Dissertation Chair for John Laub, who is currently my Dissertation Chair. Of course it's no secret that there was no love lost between Hirschi and my grad school mentor Blumstein during the "great debate" in the 80's. As John Laub says, the debate between these two giants made all criminology grad school students at the time anxious to read the new issue of Criminology to see what was going to be said next. I'm devious in that I always put Blumstein and Hirschi side by side in my list of top criminologists. Hirschi "went to war" with several other criminologists besides Blumstein, however. He famously took Strain theorists and Social Learning theorists to task. He's been criticized by many for his Self-Control theory. But I admire his stubborness. I admire his rejection of theoretical integration in favor of theoretical competition, and his vigorous debate of ideas with other criminologists. There's a lot more that I admire about Hirschi but let me move on. 
RONALD AKERSSpeaking of people Hirschi has debated, here's another one. Akers is the pioneer in what we know today as the Social Learning extension of Differential Association theory in criminology. I think Social Learning theory is probably the most formidible competitor to Control theories (but of course I still come down on the side of Control theory). Akers has advanced Sutherland's Differential Association in important ways, especially by specifying the learning mechanisms involved. In addition to Akers academic contributions, you have to love the Ron Akers Bluegrass Band that plays at ASC each year. Gotta love it.
MARVIN WOLFGANG
This Univ. of Pennsylvania professor is another early pioneer of the kinds of longitudinal studies that are now popular in criminology. His "Delinquency in a Birth Cohort" and "Subculture of Violence" books are his most important works. He's famous for the finding that a small percentage of delinquents (about 6%) are responsible for about half of all delinquency. Of course many have used his Philadelphia Birth Cohort dataset from which he generated this finding to conduct a lot of other important work in the field. I really like his "Subculture of Violence" book, particularly the first part of the book where sets out to define a criminologist and the proper domain of criminology (I always thought it was kind of weird how he worked this into his book on a theory of the subculture of violence but to me it's perhaps the best part of the book). Forget Elijah Anderson (no disrespect intended to Anderson), it was Wolfgang's "Subculture of Violence" and Fox Butterfield's "All God's Children" that turned me on to subcultural/cultural deviance theory. Wolfgang is another one who tops many peoples' lists of prominent American criminologists. As with all of the others on my list here, a lot more could be said about Wolfgang.
JAMES Q. WILSONAh yes, the conservative political criminologist. I identify myself as a conservative, so I tend to align with Wilson. His conservative ideas are what a lot of folks don't like about this criminologist. Along with Blumstein, I think Wilson has done about as much as anybody out there in the field to promote criminology in public policy. His whopping long book "Crime and Human Nature" is probably my favorite of his pieces. Most consider the theory outlined in this book to be a biological theory of crime. It's a criminal propensity theory that shares a lot of commonality with Gottfredson/Hirschi's Self-Control theory. One area that I absolutely disagree with Wilson on is his proposition that criminological theory is mostly irrelevant to public policy. But I don't have to see eye to eye with Wilson (or many of the others on my list here) in order to respect his work and contribution to the field.
CLIFFORD SHAW
Shaw is author of "The Jackroller", a great book that brings qualitative methods into play in criminology. In "Jackroller", he presents "a delinquent boy's own story". His sample size of one might be criticized by the quantitative purists, but the depth and richness of the story of Stanley in "Jackroller" is genius (and just plain interesting to read). Of course Shaw is also known for his work with McKay and the Chicago School in promoting sociological postivism and pioneering Social Disorganization theory. Being a control theorist, I'm particularly a fan of the macro-level social control elements in Shaw and McKay's Social Disorganization theory.
DAVID MATZATo me, Matza compares classical school criminology to positive school criminology better than anyone else. His "embarrassment of riches" critique of positive school criminology is excellent. "Delinquency and Drift" is a great book too. Some people classify Matza's work as subcultural theory, but I side with those who view his work as control theory. Matza (along with Sykes) also formulated the whole "techniques of neutralization" idea, which is drawn upon a lot in current correctional rehabilitation work. Matza's whole concept of drift in and out of delinquency/crime (similar to Glaser's "zig-zag" concept) is a really intriquing line of inquiry as well. I remember my theory professor (Ray Paternoster) saying that in his opinion Matza writes with more technical perfection than any other criminologist. I'm not sure I necessarily share this view, but Paternoster definitely turned my on to Matza's work. Even for those not interested in criminological theory, Matza is certainly a good writer to read and emulate if you want to improve your own writing.
DANIEL NAGIN & RAY PATERNOSTER
Speaking of my theory professor, Ray Paternoster, he's next on my list. Actually I'm pairing him together with Dan Nagin, my former statistics professor at Carnegie Mellon. While each of these two individually have made enormous contributions, I perhaps like their work that they've done together the best. What they've contributed together is a better understanding and improved testing of deterrence/rational choice theory. Their 1991 article where they lay out the "urn analogy" for explaining the relationship between past and current offending is a classic. I'm a big fan of the "urn analogy". Their students (Piquero, Pogarsky, etc.) have carried the banner of deterrence/rational choice research as well. I hold high hopes for the future of deterrence/rational choice theories and as such I think Nagin and Paternoster have really progressed this area. A short word about each individually now...Nagin is perhaps Al Blumstein's most well-known student. He is a statistical genius. His formulation of the "semi-parametric group-based" modeling approach has become an important technique for quantitatively testing life course theories and conducting longitudinal studies. Another piece of work of Nagin's that I'm a big fan of is his longitudinal study with Tremblay. What I find fascinating about Nagin and Tremblay's work is that they find that the 
aggression peaks somewhere before 2 years old, not in the late teens or early 20's like most criminological research postulates. I think this has powerful implications for the classical school assumption that what needs to be explained is conformity and not delinquency/crime. I think it's also potentially damning to social learning theory. Aside from Paternoster's work with Nagin, Paternoster does best (I believe) at testing criminological theory. His textbook on theory is probably one of the best. He's done some good testing of labeling theory. I've already mentioned is work on testing deterrence/rational choice. Paternoster is also recognized for his research on capital punishment. I can't say that I'm that familiar with his work in this area. I know he's done a fair bit of work in this area though.JOHN LAUB & ROBERT SAMPSON
Speaking of dynamic duo's, here's another pair. Laub and Sampson have done an incredible amount of work together. John is my current advisor/dissertation chair so obviously I'm gonna have good things to say. These two criminologists where in the same cohort of students in the criminology program at Albany. Hirschi has referred to their cohort as the golden age of that program. Clearly Sampson and Laub best known for rediscovering the Glueck's "Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency" longitudinal study. In doing so, they've established the longest longitudinal study in criminology to date. Their book "Shared Beginnings, Divergent Lives" represents a 50 year follow-up of the Glueck boys. I think I like "Shared Beginnings, Divergent Lives" the best because it focuses on desistance, which is a primary interest of mine. Theoretically speaking, their first book "Crime in the Making", in which they lay out their age-graded theory of informal social control, is the important work of their's to read. As their former teacher Travis Hirschi moved on to self-control theory, Sampson and Laub have carried the banner of social control theory. 
They've also introduced "life-course criminology" to the discipline. Sampson and Laub are "life-course criminology". They've spent a career (to date) of improving our understanding of continuity and change in criminal behavior across the life-course. On his own, Sampson has done a lot of work in the area of community factors related to crime and social disorganization theory. Most recognize that Sampson, along with Robert Bursik, are responsible for the resurgence of social disorganization theory in criminology. Sampson's notion of "collective efficacy" has been popular in recent years. Laub's individual work has been in the area of juvenile delinquency and also on the history of criminology. I particularly admire Laub's championing of the history of criminology. His knowledge of the history of the discipline is amazing. I've written before about his "Criminology in the Making" book, in which he interviewed several well-known criminologists. I've always said that I'd like to do something like a "Criminology in the Making Part II" with interviews from a current cohort of criminologists. Perhaps this would include interviews with Sampson and Laub themselves.TERRIE MOFFITT
Moffitt has postulated one of the most intriguing developmental theories of crime- the "dual taxonomy" theory. I love this theory for one simple reason- it's parsimonious (which is reason I like Gottfredson and Hirschi's self-control theory as well). A couple of years ago, Moffitt (along with Blumstein) won the coveted Stockholm Prize in Criminology. This recently established award is intended to be akin to a nobel prize in criminology. Moffitt, like many other of the greats in the field, comes to us from outside of criminology. She in fact has never been on faculty in a criminology department as far as I am aware. Most students of criminology will have to read her work though.
JOAN MCCORD
McCord is well-recognized for her use of a longitudinal-experimental design in the Cambridge-Somerville study, in which she was one of the first to empirically demonstrate that some 
programs/interventions can have a negative impact on delinquency/criminal behavior. Her early use of a longitudinal-experimental design set a high bar for program evaluation. It was also an important finding that programs can actually have a negative impact. I particularly like McCord's work on family factors. Her and David Farrington have probably done as much if not more research than anyone in the field on family factors as related to crime/delinquency. McCord had a long and distinguished career. I've heard several personal stories about her from my friends at Temple University. I also remember attending a panel session which was a tribute to her life and work, at the ASC conference the year after she passed away. I remember being impressed by what I learned about her career.
programs/interventions can have a negative impact on delinquency/criminal behavior. Her early use of a longitudinal-experimental design set a high bar for program evaluation. It was also an important finding that programs can actually have a negative impact. I particularly like McCord's work on family factors. Her and David Farrington have probably done as much if not more research than anyone in the field on family factors as related to crime/delinquency. McCord had a long and distinguished career. I've heard several personal stories about her from my friends at Temple University. I also remember attending a panel session which was a tribute to her life and work, at the ASC conference the year after she passed away. I remember being impressed by what I learned about her career. 
DAVID FARRINGTONFarrington is another with a long and distinguished career. His research has covered several different areas. He's done a fair bit of work with Rolf Loeber on developmental research using the Pittsburgh Youth Study. He's done some good work on the age-crime curve and later with Blumstein and company on the criminal career paradigm. He is co-author (along with Blumstein and Piquero) of a recent book that is credited for bringing about a resurgence of the criminal career paradigm. It is one of several books/publications that he's written on the results of his longitudinal baby- the Cambridge Study in Delinquency Development. As I mentioned under McCord's section above, he's also done some good work on family factors related to delinquency/crime. Farrington has even taken a crack at putting together his own theory (which I'm not personally a fan of- it's the opposite of parsimonious). I think Farrington is best at promoting a risk factor approach to developmental criminology. I'm not a big fan of the risk factor approach but it's hard to ignore Farrington's work.
STEVE LEVITT
Steve Levitt is not a criminologist. He's an economist. He's written on a lot of topics other than crime, but his research on public policy issues related to crime is so good that many criminology students will have to read it. Of course he's author of the best-selling book "Freakonomics" (check out his freakonomics blog online too...there are some good posts on 
there). His contribution to criminology is not in the area of theory, but instead in the area of methodology. He is very sophisticated methodologically. He has been a champion for using "instrumental variables" as a way to break the problem of endogeneity in relationships such as the relationship between incarceration rates and crime. He is a leading researcher on the incapacitative impact of prison. He has made use of time-series approaches to examine the relationship between prison and crime and the relationship between police force size and crime. He's written an excellent piece analyzing factors that do and don't explain the American crime drop of the '90s. His most provocative work is his research in which finds that legalization of abortion was partially responsible for the crime drop. Again, I respect Levitt most for his methodological approach (not necessarily for his findings). I also appreciate that Levitt has been instrumental in making room for economists to delve into criminology. I'm a fan of having economists in criminology (I'm thinking Marvel & Moody, Reuter, Bushway, etc.) and also of econometric approaches to criminological research.
there). His contribution to criminology is not in the area of theory, but instead in the area of methodology. He is very sophisticated methodologically. He has been a champion for using "instrumental variables" as a way to break the problem of endogeneity in relationships such as the relationship between incarceration rates and crime. He is a leading researcher on the incapacitative impact of prison. He has made use of time-series approaches to examine the relationship between prison and crime and the relationship between police force size and crime. He's written an excellent piece analyzing factors that do and don't explain the American crime drop of the '90s. His most provocative work is his research in which finds that legalization of abortion was partially responsible for the crime drop. Again, I respect Levitt most for his methodological approach (not necessarily for his findings). I also appreciate that Levitt has been instrumental in making room for economists to delve into criminology. I'm a fan of having economists in criminology (I'm thinking Marvel & Moody, Reuter, Bushway, etc.) and also of econometric approaches to criminological research.ROBERT MERTON
I have no particulary affinity for strain theory, but those who are will owe a major debt to the work of Robert Merton. He's the modern father of strain theory, just as Hirschi is the modern father of social control theory and Ron 
Akers is the modern father of social learning theory. Merton developed strain theory out of Durkheim's notion of "anomie". Interestingly enough, both strain theorists such as Merton and social control theorists such as Hirschi point to the work of Durkheim as part of their foundation, even thought these two theories in their modern form are largely incompatible in my view. Strain theory is still quite popular among criminologists, with offshoots such as "institutional strain theory" and "general strain theory" showing up in the literature in recent years. Again, you can't be a strain theorist and ignore the work of Robert Merton. I'm not totally at odds with Merton's version of strain theory either, particularly the cultural deviance elements of the theory.
Akers is the modern father of social learning theory. Merton developed strain theory out of Durkheim's notion of "anomie". Interestingly enough, both strain theorists such as Merton and social control theorists such as Hirschi point to the work of Durkheim as part of their foundation, even thought these two theories in their modern form are largely incompatible in my view. Strain theory is still quite popular among criminologists, with offshoots such as "institutional strain theory" and "general strain theory" showing up in the literature in recent years. Again, you can't be a strain theorist and ignore the work of Robert Merton. I'm not totally at odds with Merton's version of strain theory either, particularly the cultural deviance elements of the theory. 
ALBERT COHENI think Al Cohen has to be well into his 90's in age, but he still shows up at ASC conferences. I want to be like that...still intellectually curious and involved with the discipline when I reach 90. Cohen is famous for his "Delinquent Boys" book, which is a classic that is on the "must-read" list for crim students taking theory. He is another pioneer of strain theory. I won't beat up the fact that I'm not a fan of strain theory. But I admire the career and work of Al Cohen. I prefer his version of traditional strain theory over that of Merton's and of Cloward & Ohlin's.
LARRY SHERMAN
Sherman is another one of those "jack of all trades" in the field. I think most know him for his work on policing. But more generally, he's been championing evidence-based approches to criminal justice policy for some time now. His famous Minneapolis Domestic Violence study (with Richard Berk) illustrates his career-long dedication to using rigorous methods for program
evaluation such as randomized-controlled experiments. He is also the author of defiance theory, which meshes labeling theory, social control theory, and procedural justice theory. Defiance theory hasn't really received nearly the attention that it should, in my opinion. I think it's a plausible theory for explaining how punishment more generally and prison specifically can have differential effects on different types of offenders. I've never personally met Sherman, but from what I've heard and from the impression I get he is extremely knowledgable about many different areas of the discipline (theory, practice, corrections, policing, etc.), as a true criminologist should be in my opinion. You can't be an expert in everything, but if you're going to profess this discipline then you should know as much about the different areas it covers as possible. This is the sense I get of Sherman. I think he'll continue to champion evidence-based approaches to crime policy too, as demonstrated by the "what works, what doesn't, what's promising" study that he spearheaded while at Univ. of Maryland. Whew, what a list. I could write a lot more about each of the above individuals and probably add a lot of other individuals to the list. But I'm gonna stop here because I want to hear what other's think. Who are your top 10 (or top 20) criminologists? Who have I missed here? What distinguishing facts about those on my list have I missed? Would you take anyone off this list? Let me hear what you have to say.
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