This brief examines the influence and prestige of scholars and works in the field of criminology and criminal justice, as well as changes in influence and prestige over a period of 35 years, using citation analysis. Based on responses to prior research, most criminologists consider the results both fascinating and thought-provoking, although methods of measuring scholarly influence are also highly controversial. The brief includes 35 years of data (1986 through 2020) on the most-cited scholars and works in major American and international criminology and criminal justice journals, and provides an objective measure of scholarly influence and prestige. Appropriate for graduate students and researchers, it helps to document the intellectual development of criminology and criminal justice as a field of study.

Ellen G. Cohn, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice and an affiliated faculty member in the Center for Women's and Gender Studies at Florida International University. As well as studying scholarly influence and prestige in criminology and criminal justice, she is engaged in international cross-disciplinary research examining the relationship between immigration and criminal behavior, as well as on the impact of citizenship on treatment by the criminal justice system. She is the Secretary of the Board of Directors of Crime Stoppers of Miami-Dade and the Florida Keys and is a recipient of the U.S. Presidential Volunteer Service Award. David P. Farrington, O.B.E., is Emeritus Professor of Psychological Criminology at Cambridge University. He has received the Stockholm Prize in Criminology and he has been President of the American Society of Criminology. His major research interest is in developmental criminology, and he is Director of the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development, which is a prospective longitudinal survey of over 400 London males from age 8 to age 61. In addition to 905 published journal articles and book chapters on criminological and psychological topics, he has published 133 books, monographs and government publications, and 164 shorter publications (total = 1,202). Guy C. M. Skinner, Ph.D., is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust and a Visiting Researcher at the Department of Public Health and Primary Care, University of Cambridge. He completed his PhD in Psychological Criminology at the Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge. He is an experienced mixed methods practitioner with a particular interest in life course approaches and developmental criminology, using linked data, longitudinal approaches, systematic reviews and meta-analyses.