Robert Reiner (scholar)

Robert Reiner is a British sociologist who has played a large role in making police studies a distinct field. Currently he is Emeritus Professor of Criminology at London School of Economics Law School. He was Reader in Criminology at Bristol University and at Brunel University, President of the British Society of Criminology from 1993-6 and Director of the LSE Mannheim Centre for Criminology and Criminal Justice 1995-8.

He was born in Hungary in 1946. His refugee parents brought him to England when he was two. In 1967 he graduated from the University of Cambridge with a degree in Economics where he was taught, among others, by Ralph Miliband. He completed MSc in Sociology from London School of Economics in 1969.

His book The Politics of the Police had a formative influence on the growth of police studies in UK and has been described as "the finest, most authoritative and comprehensive account of British policing in the post-war period and remains the standard work in the field."

He was a co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Criminology.